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THE GULL'S HORNBOOK
OR
FASHIONS TO PLEASE ALL SORTS OF GULLS
proþmíum
I SING, like the cuckoo in June,
to be laughed at. If therefore I make a scurvy noise, and that my tunes sound unmusically;
the ditty being altogether lame in respect of the bad feet, and unhandsome in regard
of the worm-eaten fashion; you that have authority under the broad seal of mouldy
custom to be called the "gentle audience," set your goodly great hands
to my pardon: or else, because I scorn to be upbraided that I profess to instruct
others in an art, whereof I myself am ignorant, do your worst; choose whether you
will let my notes have you by the ears, or no: hiss, or give plaudities; I care not a nutshell which of either: you
can neither shake our comic theatre with your stinking breath of hisses, nor raise
it with the thunderclaps of your hands: up it goes, in dispetto del fato. The
motley is bought; and a coat
with four elbows, for any one that will wear it, is put to making, in defiance
of the seven
wise masters. For I
7
have smelt out of the musty sheets of an old almanack, that, at one time or other,
even he that jets upon the neatest
and sprucest leather; even he that talks all adage and apothegm; even he that will
not have a wrinkle in his new satin suit, though his mind be uglier than his face,
and his face so illfavouredly made that he looks at all times as if a toothdrawer
were fumbling about his gums; with a thousand lame heteroclites more, that cozen the world with a
gilt spur and a ruffled
boot; will be all glad to fit themselves in Will
Sommer his wardrobe, and be driven, like a Flemish hoy in foul weather, to slip
into our school, and take out a lesson. Tush! Cþlum petimus stultitiâ.
All that are chosen constables
for their wit go not to heaven.
A fig therefore for the new found college
of critics. You courtiers, that do nothing but sing the gam-ut a-re of complimental
courtesy, and, at the rustical behaviour of our country muse, will screw forth worse
faces than those which God and the painter has bestowed upon you; I defy your perfumed
scorn, and vow to poison your musk-cats, if their civet excrement do but once play
with my nose. You ordinary Gulls, that, through a poor and silly ambition to be thought
you inherit the revenues of extraordinary wit, will spend your shallow censure upon
the most elaborate poem so lavishly, that all the painted tablemen about you take you to be heirs apparent
to rich Midas, that had more skill in alchemy than Kelley
with the philosopher's stone (for all that he could lay his fingers on turned into
beaten gold), dry tobacco with my leaves, you good dry-brained polypragmonists, till your pipe-offices smoke with your pitifully-stinking
girds shot out against me. I conjure
you, as you
8
come of the right goose-caps,
stain not your house; but when at a new play you take up the twelvepenny room next the stage, because the
lords and you may seem to be hail-fellow-well-met, there draw forth this book, read
aloud, laugh aloud and play the antics, that all the garlic-mouthed stinkards may
cry out: "Away with the fool!" As for thee, Zoilus,
go hang thyself; and for thee, Momus,
chew nothing but
hemlock, and spit nothing but the syrup of aloes upon my papers, till thy very
rotten lungs come forth for anger. I am snake-proof;
and though, with Hannibal,
you bring whole hogsheads of vinegar-railings, it is impossible for you to quench
or come over my Alpine resolution. I will sail boldly and desperately alongst the
shore of the Isle
of Gulls; and in defiance of those terrible block-houses,
their loggerheads,
make a true discovery of their wild, yet habitable, country.
Sound an alarum therefore, O thou my courageous muse! and like a Dutch crier make proclamation with thy drum: the
effect of thine O-yes
being that if any man, woman, or child, be he lord, be he loon, be he courtier, be
he carter, of the inns o' court, or inns of city, that hating, from the bottom of
his heart, all good manners and generous education, is really in love, or rather
coats on that excellent country lady, innocent Simplicity, being the first, fairest,
and chiefest chambermaid that our great-grandam Eve entertained into service: or
if any person aforesaid, longing to make a voyage in the Ship of Fools, would venture all the wit that
his mother left him to live in the country of Gulls, Cockneys, and Coxcombs; to the
intent that, haunting theatres, he may sit there like a popinjay, only to learn play-speeches, which
9
afterward may furnish the necessity of his bare knowledge to maintain tabletalk;
or else, haunting taverns, desires
to take the Bacchanalian degrees, and to write
himself in
arte bibendi magister; that at ordinaries would sit like Bias, and in the streets walk like a braggart;
that on foot longs to go like a French lackey, and on horseback rides like an English
tailor: or that from seven years and upward, till his dying day, has a month's mind to have the Gull's Hornbook
by heart; by which in time he may be promoted to serve any lord in Europe, as his
crafty Fool or his bawdy Jester; yea, and to be so dear to his lordship, as for the
excellency of his fooling to be admitted both to ride in coach with him, and to lie
at his very feet on a truckle-bed. Let all such (and I hope the world has not left
her old fashions, but there are ten thousand such) repair hither. Never knock, you
that strive to be ninnyhammers;
but with your feet spurn open the door, and enter into our school: you shall not
need to buy books; no, scorn to
distinguish a B. from a battledore; only look that your ears be long enough to
reach our rudiments, and you are made for ever. It is by heart that I would have
you to con my lessons, and therefore be sure to have most devouring stomachs. Nor
be you terrified with an opinion that our rules be hard and indigestible; or that
you shall never be good graduates in these rare sciences of barbarism and idiotism.
Oh fie upon any man that carries that ungodly mind! Tush, tush! Tarleton, Kemp,
nor Singer, nor all the
litter of fools that now come drawling behind them, never played the clowns more
naturally than the arrantest sot of you all shall, if he will but boil my instructions
in his brainpan.
10
And lest I myself, like some pedantical vicar stammering out a most false and cracked
Latin oration to master Mayor of the town and his brethren, should cough and hem
in my deliveries; by which means you, my auditors, should be in danger to depart
more like woodcocks than
when you came to me. O thou venerable father of ancient, and therefore hoary, customs,
Silvanus, I invoke thy assistance; thou that first taughtest carters to wear hobnails,
and lobs to play Christmas gambols
and to shew the most beastly horse-tricks! O do thou, or if thou art not at leisure
let thy mountebank goat-footed Fauni,
inspire me with the knowledge of all those silly and ridiculous fashions, which the
old dunstical world wore
even out at elbows; draw for me the pictures of the most simple fellows then living,
that by their patterns I may paint the like! Awake, thou noblest drunkard Bacchus;
thou must likewise stand to me, if at least thou canst for reeling; teach me, you
sovereign skinker, how to
take the Germanies' upsy-freeze, the Danish rowsa, the Switzer's stoop
of Rhenish, the Italian's parmizant,
the Englishman's healths, his hoops,
cans, half-cans, gloves, frolics, and flapdragons,
together with the most notorious qualities of the truest tosspots, as when to cast, when to quarrel, when to fight,
and where to sleep: hide not a drop of thy moist mystery from me, thou plumpest swill-bowl;
but like an honest red-nosed wine-bibber lay open all thy secrets, and the mystical hieroglyphic of rashers o' th' coals, modicums, and shoeing-horns,
and why they were invented, for what occupations, and when to be used. Thirdly, (because
I will have more than two strings to my bow) Comus, thou clerk of Gluttony's kitchen,
do thou also bid me "Proface!"
and let me not rise from table, till I am perfect
11
in all the general rules of epicures and cormorants:
fatten thou my brains, that I may feed others; and teach them both how to squat down
to their meat; and how to munch so like loobies,
that the wisest Solon in the world shall not be able to take them for any other.
If there be any strength in thee, thou beggarly monarch of Indians and setter-up
of rotten-lunged chimneysweepers, Tobacco, I beg it at thy smoky hands; make me thine
adopted heir, that inheriting the virtues of thy whiffs I may distribute them amongst
all nations; and make the fantastic Englishmen, above the rest, more cunning in the
distinction of thy roll Trinidado, leaf, and pudding, than the whitest-toothed blackamore
in all Asia. After thy pipe shall ten thousands be taught to dance, if thou wilt
but discover to me the sweetness of thy snuffs, with the manner of spawling, slavering, spitting and driveling in all
places, and before all persons. Oh what songs will I charm
out, in praise of those valiantly strong-stinking breaths, which are easily purchased
at thy hands, if I can but get thee to travel through my nose! All the "Fohs!"
in the fairest lady's mouth that ever kissed lord shall not fright me from thy brown
presence: for thou art humble; and from the courts of princes hast vouchsafed to
be acquainted with penny galleries; and, like a good fellow, to be drunk for company,
with watermen, carmen, and colliers; whereas before, and so still, knights and wise
gentlemen were, and are, thy companions. Last of all, thou lady of clowns and carters,
schoolmistress of fools and wiseacres, thou homely but harmless Rusticity, Oh breathe
thy dull and dunstical spirit into our gander's quill! Crown me thy poetönot with
a garland of baysöOh no! the number of those that steal lauret
is too
12
monstrous alreadyöbut swaddle thou my brows with those unhandsome boughs, which,
like Autumn's rotten hair, hang dangling over thy dusty eyelids. Help me, thou midwife
of unmannerliness, to be delivered of this embryon that lies tumbling in my brain.
Direct me in this hard and dangerous voyage, that, being safely arrived on the desired
shore, I may build up altars to thy unmatchable rudeness; the excellency whereof
I know will be so great, that groutnolls
and momes will in swarms fly buzzing
about thee. So Herculean a labour is this that I undertake, that I am enforced to
bawl out for all your succours, to the intent I may aptly furnish this feast of fools,
unto which I solemnly invite all the world for at it shall sit not only those whom
fortune favours, but even those whose wits are naturally their own. Yet, because
your artificial fools bear away the bell, all our best workmanship, at this time,
shall be spent to fashion such a creature.
13
Chapter i.
The Old world and the New weighed together.The Tailors of those times and these compared. The Apparel and Diet of our first fathers.
GOOD clothes are the embroidered trappings of pride, and good cheer the very eryngo-root of gluttony;
so that fine backs and fat bellies are coach horses to two of the seven deadly sins;
in the boots of which coach Lechery and Sloth sit like the waiting maid. In a most
desperate state therefore do tailors and cooks stand, by means of their offices;
for both those trades are apple-squires
to that couple of sins. The one invents more fantastic fashions than France hath
worn since her first stone was laid; the other more lickerish
epicurean dishes than were ever served up to Gallonius'
table. Did man, think you, come wrangling into the world about no better matters,
than all his lifetime to make privy searches in Birchin
lane for whalebone doublets, or for pies of nightingale tongues in Heliogabalus his kitchen? No, no! the first suit
of apparel that ever mortal man put on, came neither from the mercer's shop, nor
the merchant's warehouse:
15
Adam's bill would have been taken then, sooner than a knight's bond now; yet was
he great in nobody's books for
satin and velvets. The silkworms had something else to do in those days than to set
up looms and be free of the weavers: his breeches were not so much worth as King Stephen's, that cost but a poor noble; for
Adam's holiday hose and doublet were of no better stuff than plain fig-leaves, and
Eve's best gown of the same piece; there went but a pair of shears between them. An antiquary
in this town has yet some of the powder of those leaves dried to show. Tailors then
were none of the twelve companies: their hall, that now is larger than some dorpes among the Netherlands, was then no bigger than
a Dutch butcher's shop: they durst not strike down their customers with large bills: Adam cared not an apple paring
for all their lousy hems. There was then neither the Spanish slop, nor the skipper's galligaskin,
the Switzer's blistered
codpiece, nor the Danish sleeve sagging down like a Welsh wallet, the Italian's close
strosser, nor the French
standing collar: your treble-quadruple dædalian
ruffs, nor your stiffnecked rabatos,
that have more arches for pride
to row under, than can stand under five London bridges, durst not then set themselves
out in print; for the patent
for starch could by no means be signed. Fashions
then was counted a diseaseöand horses died of it: but now, thanks to folly, it is
held the only rare physic; and the purest golden
asses live upon it.
As for the diet of that Saturnian
age, it was like their attire, homely. A salad, and a mess of leek-porridge was
a dinner for a far greater man than ever the Turk was. Potato-pies and custards stood
like the sinful suburbs of
16
cookery, and had not a wall so much as a handful
high built round about them. There
were no Daggers then, nor no Chairs. Crookes
his ordinary, in those parsimonious days had not a capon's leg to throw at a
dog. O golden world! The suspicious Venetian carved not his meat with a silver pitchfork, neither did the
sweet-toothed Englishman shift a dozen of trenchers at one meal; Piers Ploughman laid the cloth, and Simplicity
brought in the voider. How
wonderfully is the world altered! And no marvel, for it has lien sick almost five
thousand years; so that it is no more like the old théâtre du monde, than
old Paris Garden
is like the king's Garden at Paris.
What an excellent workman therefore were he, that could cast the Globe of it into a new mould: and not to make it look
like Mullineux his globe,
with a round face sleeked and washed over with whites of eggs; but to have it in plano, as it was
at first, with all the ancient circles, lines, parallels, and figures; representing
indeed all the wrinkles, cracks, crevices, and flaws that (like the mole on Helen's cheek, being cos amoris,) stuck upon it at the first creation
and made it look most lovely: but now those furrows are filled up with ceruse and vermilion; yet all will not do, it appears
more ugly. Come, come; it would be but a bald world, but that it wears a periwig;
the body of it is foul, like a birding-piece,
by being too much heated; the breath of it stinks like the mouths of chambermaids
by feeding on so many sweetmeats: and, though to purge it will be a sorer labour
than the cleansing of Augeas' stable, or the scouring of Moorditch, yet Ille ego qui quondam; I am the
Pasquil's madcap
that will do't.
c
17
Draw near, therefore, all you that love to walk upon single and simple soles; and that
wish to keep company with none but innocents, and the sons of civil citizens; out
with your tables; and nail
your ears, as it were to the pillory, to the music of our instructions: nor let that
title Gullery fright you from school, for mark what an excellent ladder you
are to climb by. How many worthy, and men of famous memory for their learning (of all offices, from the scavenger,
and so upward) have flourished in London of that ancient family of the Wiseacres,
being now no better esteemed than fools and younger brothers? This gear must be looked into; lest in time (O lamentable time,
when that hourglass is turned up!) a rich man's son shall no sooner peep out of the
shell of his minority, but he shall straightways be begged for a concealment, or
set upon, as it were, by freebooters, and ta'en in his own purse nets by fencers and conycatchers.
To drive which pestilent infection from the heart, here's a medicine more potent,
and more precious, than was ever that mingle-mangle
of drugs which Mithridates
boiled together. Fear not to taste it; a caudle will not go down half so smoothly
as this will; you need not call the honest name of it in question; for antiquity
puts off his cap, and makes a bare oration in praise of the virtues of it: the receipt
hath been subscribed unto, by all those that have had to do with simplex, with this
moth eaten motto, probatum
est. Your Diacatholicon
aureum, that
with gunpowder threatens to blow up all diseases that come in his way, smells worse
than asafaetida in respect of this. You therefore whose bodies, either overflowing
with the corrupt humours of this age's fantasticness, or else being burnt up with
the inflamation of
18
upstart fashions, would fain be purged, and, to shew that you truly loath this polluted
and mangy fisted world, turn Timonists,
not caring either for men or their manners, do you pledge me: spare not to take a
deep draught of our homely counsel: the cup is full; and so large, that I boldly
drink a health unto all comers.
19
Chapter ii.
How a young Gallant shall not only keep his clothes (which many of them can hardly do for Brokers); but also save the charges of taking physic; with other Rules for the Morning. The praise of Sleep, and of Going Naked.
YOU have heard all this while nothing but the prologue, and seen no more but a dumb show: our vetus comþdia steps out now. The fittest stage upon which you, that study to be an actor there, are first to present yourself, is, in my approved judgement, the softest and largest down-bed; from whence, if you will but take sound counsel of your pillow, you shall never rise, till you hear it ring noon at least. Sleep, in the name of Morpheus, your bellyful; or, rather, sleep till you hear your belly grumbles and waxeth empty. Care not for those coarse painted-cloth rhymes made by the university of Salerne, that come over you with:
Sit brevis, aut nullus, tibi somnus meridianus.
Short let thy sleep at noon be,
Or rather let it none be.
Sweet candied counsel!
But there's ratsbane under it. Trust never a Bachelor
of Art of them all; for he speaks
21
your health fair, but to steal away the maidenhead of it. Salerne stands in the luxurious
country of Naples; and who knows not that the Neapolitan will, like Derick the hangman, embrace you with one arm, and rip
your guts with the other? There's not a hair in his mustachio
but, if he kiss you, will stab you through the cheeks like a poniard: the slave,
to be avenged on his enemy, will drink off a pint of poison himself, so that he may
be sure to have the other pledge him but half so much. And it may be, that, upon
some secret grudge to work the general destruction of all mankind, those verses were
composed. Physicians, I know, and none else took up the bucklers in their defence;
railing bitterly upon that venerable and princely custom of long-lying-abed. Yet,
now I remember me, I cannot blame them; for they which want sleep, which is man's
natural rest, become either mere naturals,
or else fall into the doctor's
hands, and so consequently into the Lord's: whereas he that snorts profoundly scorns to let Hippocrates himself stand
tooting on his urinal, and
thereby saves the charges
of a groat's-worth of physic: and happy is that man that saves it; for physic
is non
minus venefica quam benefica; it hath an ounce of gall in it for every dram
of honey. Ten Tyburns cannot turn
men over the perch so fast as one of these brewers of purgations; the very nerves
of their practice being nothing but ars homicidiorum, an art to make poor souls kick
up their heels; insomuch, that even their sick grunting patients stand in more danger
of Mr. Doctor and his drugs, than of all the cannon-shots which the desperate disease
itself can discharge against them. Send them packing therefore, to walk like Italian
mountebanks; beat not your brains to understand
22
their parcel-greek,
parcel-latin gibberish; let not all their sophistical buzzing into your ears,
nor their satirical canvassing
of featherbeds, and tossing men out of their warm blankets, awake you till the hour
that here is prescribed.
For do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is: it is so inestimable a jewel,
that, if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour's slumber, it cannot be bought:
of so beautiful a shape is it, that, though a man lie with an empress, his heart
cannot be at quiet till he leaves her embracements to be at rest with the other:
yea, so greatly indebted are we to this kinsman of death, that we owe the better
tributary half of our life to him; and there's good cause why we should do so, for
sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. Who complains
of want, of wounds, of cares, of great men's oppressions, of captivity, whilst he
sleepeth? Beggars in their beds take as much pleasure as kings. Can we therefore
surfeit on this delicate ambrosia? Can we drink too much of that, whereof to taste
too little tumbles us into a churchyard; and to use it but indifferently throws us
into Bedlam? No, no! Look upon Endymion,
the Moon's minion, who slept threescore and fifteen years; and was not a hair the
worse for it. Can lying abed till noon then, being not the threescore and fifteenth
thousand part of his nap, be hurtful?
Besides, by the opinion of all philosophers and physicians, it is not good to trust
the air with our bodies till the sun with his flame-coloured wings hath fanned away
the misty smoke of the morning, and refined that thick tobaccobreath which the rheumatic
night throws abroad of purpose to put out the eye of the element: which work questionless
23
cannot be perfectly finished, till the sun's car horses stand prancing on the very
top of highest noon; so that then, and not till then, is the most healthful hour
to be stirring. Do you require examples to persuade you? At what time do lords and
ladies use to rise, but then? Your simpering merchants' wives are the fairest liers
in the world; and is not eleven o'clock their common hour? They find, no doubt, unspeakable
sweetness in such lying; else they would not day by day put it so in practice. In
a word, midday slumbers are golden: they make the body fat, the skin fair, the flesh
plump, delicate, and tender: they set a russet colour on the cheeks of young women,
and make lusty courage to rise up in men: they make us thrifty; both in sparing victuals,
for breakfasts thereby are saved from the hell-mouth of the belly; and in preserving
apparel, for whilst we warm us in our beds our clothes are not worn.
The casements of thine eyes being then at this commendable time of the day newly
set open, choose
rather to have thy windpipe cut in pieces than to salute any man. Bid not good-morrow
so much as to thy father, though he be an emperor. An idle ceremony it is, and can
do him little good; to thyself it may bring much harm: for if he be a wise man that
knows how to hold his peace, of necessity must he be counted a fool that cannot keep
his tongue.
Amongst all the wild men that run up and down in this wide forest of fools, the world,
none are more superstitious than those notable Ebritians,
the Jews: yet a Jew never wears his cap threadbare with putting it off; never bends
i'th'hams with casting
away a leg; never cries: "God save you!" though he sees the devil at
your elbow. Play the
24
Jews therefore in this, and save thy lips that labour: only remember, that, so soon
as thy eyelids be unglued, thy first exercise must be, either sitting upright on
thy pillow, or rarely lolling at thy body's whole length, to yawn, to stretch, and
to gape wider than any oyster wife; for thereby thou cost not only send out the lively
spirits, like vaunt-couriers,
to fortify and make good the uttermost borders of the body; but also, as a cunning
painter, thy goodly lineaments are drawn out in their fairest proportion.
This lesson being played, turn over a new leaf; and, unless that Freezeland cur, cold winter, offer to bite thee,
walk awhile up and down thy chamber, either in thy thin shirt only, or else (which,
at a bare word, is both more decent and more delectable) strip thyself stark naked.
Are we not born so? And shall a foolish custom make us to break the laws of our creation?
Our first parents, so long as they went naked, were suffered to dwell in paradise;
but, after they got coats to their backs, they were turned out o' doors. Put on therefore
either no apparel at all, or put it on carelessly: for look how much more delicate
liberty is than bondage; so much is the looseness in wearing of our attire above
the imprisonment of being neatly and tailor-like dressed up in it. To be ready in
our clothes is to be ready for nothing else: a man looks as if he hung in chains,
or like a scarecrow. And as those excellent
birds, whom Pliny could never have the wit to catch in all his springes, commonly
called woodcocks, whereof there is great store
in England, having all their feathers plucked from their backs, and being turned
out as naked as Plato's
cock was before all Diogenes his scholars, or as the cuckoo in Christmas, are
25
more fit to come to any knight's board, and are indeed more serviceable, than when
they are lapped in their warm liveries; even so stands the case with man. Truth,
because the bald pate her father, Time, has no hair to cover his head, goes, when
she goes best, stark naked; but Falsehood has ever a cloak for the rain. You see
likewise, that the lion, being the king of beasts; the horse, being the lustiest
creature; the unicorn,
whose horn is worth half a city; all these go with no more clothes on their backs,
than what nature hath bestowed upon them; but your baboons, and your jackanapes, being the scum
and rascality of all the hedge-creepers,
they go in jerkins and mandilions.
Marry how? They are put into these rags only in mockery.
Oh beware therefore both what you wear, and how you wear it; and let this heavenly
reason move you never to be handsome! For, when the sun is arising out of his bed,
does not the element seem more
glorious then, being only in gray, than at noon, when he's in all his bravery? It were madness to deny it. What man would
not gladly see a beautiful woman naked, or at least with nothing but a lawn, or some
loose thing over her; and even highly lift her up for being so? Shall we then abhor
that in ourselves, which we admire and hold to be so excellent in others? Absit.
26
Chapter iii.
How a young Gallant shouId warm himself by the fire; how attire himself. The description of a Man's Head: the praise of Long Hair.
BUT if, as it often happens unless the year catch the sweating sickness, the morning,
like charity waxing cold, thrust his frosty fingers into thy bosom, pinching thee
black and blue with her nails made of ice, like an invisible goblin; so that thy
teeth, as if thou wert singing pricksong,
stand coldly quavering in thy head, and leap up and down like the nimble jacks of a pair
of virginals; be then as swift as a whirlwind, and as boisterous in tossing all thy clothes in a rude heap together; with
which bundle filling thine arms, step bravely forth, crying: "Room! What a coil keep you about the fire!"
The more are set round about it, the more is thy commendation, if thou either bluntly
ridest over their shoulders, or tumblest aside their stools to creep into the chimney-corner:
there toast thy body till thy scorched shin
be speckled all over, being stained with more motley colours than are to be seen
on the right side of the rainbow.
27
Neither shall it be fit for the state of thy health to put on thy apparel, till,
by sitting in that hothouse of the chimney, thou feelest the fat dew of thy body,
like basting, run trickling down thy sides; for by that means thou mayst lawfully
boast, that thou livest by the sweat of thy brows.
As for thy stockings and shoes; so wear them, that all men may point at thee, and
make thee famous by that glorious name of a malcontent.
Or, if thy quicksilver
can run so far on thy errand as to fetch thee
boots out of St. Martin's,
let it be thy prudence to have the tops of them wide as the mouth of a wallet, and
those with fringed boothose
over them to hang down to thy ankles. Doves are accounted innocent and loving creatures;
thou, in observing this fashion, shalt seem to be a rough-footed dove, and be held as innocent.
Besides, the strawling, which
of necessity so much leather between thy legs must put thee into, will be thought
not to grow from thy disease, but from that gentlemanlike habit.
Having thus apparelled thee from top to toe, according to that simple fashion, which
the best goosecaps in Europe
strive to imitate; it is now high time for me to have a blow at thy head, which I
will not cut off with sharp documents, but rather set it on faster; bestowing upon
it such excellent carving, that, if all the wise men of Gotham
should lay their heads together, their jobbernowls
should not be able to compare with thine.
To maintain therefore that sconce
of thine strongly guarded and in good reparation, never suffer comb to fasten his
teeth there: let thy hair grow thick and bushy, like a forest or some wilderness;
lest those six-footed creatures that
28
breed in it, and are tenants to that crown-land of thine, be hunted to death by every
base barbarous barber; and so that delicate and tickling pleasure of scratching be
utterly taken from thee: for the head is a house built for reason to dwell in, and
thus is the tenement framed. The two eyes are the glass windows, at which light disperses
itself into every room, having goodly penthouses of hair to overshadow them: as for
the nose; though some, most injuriously and improperly, make it serve for an Indian chimney; yet surely it is rightly a bridge
with two arches, under which are neat passages to convey as well perfumes to air
and sweeten every chamber, as to carry away all noisome filth that is swept out of
unclean corners: the cherry lips open, like the new-painted gates of a Lord Mayor's house,
to take in provision: the tongue is a bell, hanging just under the middle of the
roof; and, lest it should be rung out too deep (as sometimes it is when women have
a peal, whereas it was cast by the first founder but only to toll softly) there are
two even rows of ivory pegs, like pales, set to keep it in: the ears are two music
rooms, into which as well good sounds as bad descend down two narrow pair of stairs,
that for all the world have crooked windings like those that lead to the top of Paul's
steeple; and, because when the tunes are once gotten in, they should not too quickly
slip out, all the walls of both places are plastered with yellow wax round about
them. Now as the fairest lodging, though it be furnished with walls, chimnies, chambers,
and all other parts of architecture, yet, if the ceiling be wanting, it stands subject
to rain, and so consequently to ruin; so would this goodly palace, which we have
modelled out unto you, be but a cold and bald habitation, were not the
29
top of it rarely covered. Nature therefore has played the tiler, and given it a most
curious covering; or, to speak more properly, she has thatched it all over; and that
thatching is hair. If then thou desires" to reserve that fee simple of wit,
thy head, for thee and the lawful heirs of thy body; play neither the scurvy part
of the Frenchman, that
plucks up all by the roots; nor that of the spending Englishman, who, to maintain a
paltry warren of unprofitable conies, disimparks the stately swift-footed wild deer:
but let thine receive his full growth, that thou mayest safely and wisely brag 'tis
thine own bush natural.
And withal consider; that, as those trees of cobweb lawn, woven by spinners the fresh
May-mornings, do dress the curled heads of the mountains, and adorn the swelling
bosoms of the valleys; or, as those snowy fleeces, which the naked briar steals from
the innocent nibbling sheep, to make himself a warm winter livery, are to either
of them both an excellent ornament: so make thou account, that, to have feathers
sticking here and there on thy head will embellish, and set thy crown out rarely.
None dare upbraid thee, that like a beggar thou hast lien
on straw, or like a travelling pedlar upon musty flocks;
for those feathers will rise up as witnesses to choke him that says so, and to prove
that thy bed was of the softest down.
When your noblest gallants consecrate their hours to their mistresses and to revelling,
they wear feathers then chiefly in their hats, being one of the fairest ensigns of
their bravery: but thou, a reveller and a mistress-server all the year, by wearing
feathers in thy hair; whose length before the rigorous edge of any puritanical pair
of scissors should
30
shorten the breadth of a finger, let the three housewifely spinsters of destiny rather curtail the
thread of thy life. Oh, no! Long hair is the only
net that women spread abroad to entrap men in: and why should not men be as far above
women in that commodity, as they go beyond men in others? The merry Greeks were called
karêkomóôntes (long-haired*).
Lose not thou, being an
honest Trojan, that honour; sithence it will more fairly become thee. Grass is
the hair of the earth, which, so long as it is suffered to grow, it becomes the wearer,
and carries a most pleasing colour; but when the sunburnt clown makes his mows at it, and like a barber shaves it off to the stumps;
then it withers, and is good for nothing but to be trussed up and thrown amongst
jades. How ugly is a bald pate!
It looks like a face wanting a nose, or like ground eaten bare with the arrows of
archers: whereas a head all hid in hair gives even to a most wicked face a sweet
proportion, and looks like a meadow newly married to the spring; which beauty in
men the Turks envying, they no
sooner lay hold on a Christian, but the first mark they set upon him, to make him
know he's a slave, is to shave off all his hair close to the skull. A Mahommedan
cruelty, therefore, is it to stuff breeches and tennis-balls with that, which, when
'tis once lost, all the hare-hunters
in the world may sweat their hearts out, and yet hardly catch it again.
You then, to whom chastity has given an heir
apparent, take order that it may be apparent; and, to that purpose, let it play openly
with the lascivious wind, even on the top of your shoulders. Experience cries out
in every city, that those selfsame critical Saturnists,
whose hair is shorter than their eyebrows, take a pride to have their hoary beards
hang
[* This Latin transliteration is based on guidelines at The
Perseus Project.]
31
slavering like a dozen of fox-tails down so low as their middle. But, alas, why should
the chins and lips of old men lick up that excrement, which they violently clip away
from the heads of young men? Is it because those long besoms, their beards, with
sweeping the soft bosoms of their beautiful young wives, may tickle their tender
breasts, and make some amends for their masters' unrecoverable dulness? No, no! There
hangs more at the ends of those long grey hairs, than all the world can come to the
knowledge of. Certain I am, that, when none but the golden age went current upon
earth, it was higher treason to clip hair, than to clip money; the comb and scissors
were condemned to the currying of hackneys; he was disfranchised for ever, that did
but put on a barber's apron. Man, woman, and child wore then hair longer than a lawsuit:
every head, when it stood bare or uncovered, looked like a butter box's noul,
having his thrummed
cap on. It was free for all nations to have shaggy pates, as it is now only for
the Irishman. But, since this polling
and shaving world crept up, locks were locked up, and hair fell to decay. Revive
thou, therefore, the old, buried fashion; and, in scorn of periwigs and sheepshearing,
keep thou that quilted head-piece
on continually. Long hair will make thee look dreadfully to thine enemies, and manly
to thy friends: it is, in peace, an ornament; in war, a strong helmet: it blunts
the edge of a sword, and deeds the leaden thump of a bullet: in winter, it is a warm
nightcap; in summer, a cooling fan of feathers.
32
Chapter iv.
How a Gallant should behave himself in Paul's Walks.
BEING weary with sailing up and down alongst
these shores of Barbaria,
here let us cast our anchor, and nimbly leap to land in our coasts, whose fresh air
shall be so much the more pleasing to us, if the ninnyhammer,
whose perfection we labour to set forth, have so much foolish wit left him as to
choose the place where to suck in: for that true humorous gallant that desires to
pour himself into all fashions (if his ambition be such, to excel even compliment
itself) must as well practice to diminish his walks, as to be various in his salads,
curious in his tobacco, or ingenious in the trussing up of a new Scotch hose; all
which virtues are excellent, and able to maintain him; especially if the old worm
eaten farmer, his father, be dead, and left him five hundred a year, only to keep
an Irish hobby, an Irish horseboy,
and himself like a gentleman. He therefore that would strive to fashion his legs
to his silk stockings, and his proud gait to his broad garters, let him whiff down these observations: for, if he once get
but to walk by the book (and I see no reason but he may, as well as fight by the book) Paul's may be proud
of
D
33
him; Will Clarke
shall ring forth encomiums in his honour; John
in Paul's churchyard shall fit his head for an excellent block; whilst all the inns of court rejoice to behold
his most handsome calf.
Your mediterranean
aisle is the nthe only gallery, wherein the pictures of all your true fashionate and complemental Gulls are, and ought
to be hung up. Into that gallery carry your neat body; but take heed you pick out
such an hour, when the main shoal of islanders
are swimming up and down. And first observe your doors of entrance, and your exit;
not much unlike the players at the theatres; keeping your decorums, even in fantasticality.
As for example: if you prove to be a northern gentleman, I would wish you to pass
through the north door, more often especially than any or the other; and so, according
to your countries, take note of your entrances.
Now for your venturing into the walk.
Be circumspect and wary what pillar you come in at; and take heed in any case, as
you love the reputation of your honour, that you avoid the serving man's log, and approach not within
five fathom of that pillar; but bend your course directly in the middle line, that
the whole body of the church may appear to be yours; where, in view of all, you may
publish your suit in what manner you affect most, either with the slide of your cloak
from the one shoulderöand then you must, as 'twere in anger, suddenly snatch at the
middle of the inside, if it be taffeta at the least, and so by that means your costly
lining is betrayed; or else by the pretty advantage of compliment. But one note by
the way do I especially woo you to, the neglect of which makes many of our gallants
cheap
34
and ordinary, that by no means you be seen above four turns but in the fifth make
yourself away, either in some of the sempsters shops, the new tobacco-office, or
amongst the booksellers, where, if you cannot read, exercise your smoke, and inquire
who has writ against this divine weed, &c. For this withdrawing yourself a little
will much benefit your suit which else, by too long walking, would be stale to the
whole spectators: but howsoever, if Paul's
jacks be once up with their elbows, and quarrelling to strike eleven; as soon
as ever the clock has parted them, and ended the fray with his hammer, let not the
Duke's gallery contain you any longer,
but pass away apace in open view: in which departure, if by chance you either encounter,
or aloof off throw your inquisitive eye upon any knight or squire, being your familiar,
salute him not by his name of Sir such a one, or so, but call him Ned,
or Jack, &c. This will set off your estimation with great men: and if,
though there be a dozen companies between you,'tis the better, he call aloud to you,
for that's most genteel, to know where he shall find you at two o'clock tell him
at such an ordinary, or such; and be sure to name those that are dearest, and whither
none but your gallants resort. After dinner you may appear again, having translated
yourself out of your English cloth cloak into a light Turkey grogram, if you have that happiness of shifting; and
then be seen, for a turn or two, to correct your teeth with some quill or silver
instrument, and to cleanse your gums with a wrought handkercher: it skills
not whether you dined, or noöthat's best known to your stomachöor in what place
you dined; though it were with cheese, of your own mother's making, in your chamber
or study.
35
Now if you chance to be a gallant not
much crossed among citizens; that is, a gallant in the mercer's books, exalted
for satins and velvets; if you be not so much blest to be crossed (as I hold it the
greatest blessing in the world to be great
in no man's books), your Paul's walk is your only refuge: the Duke's tomb is
a sanctuary, and will keep you alive from worms, and land-rats, that long to be feeding
on your carcass: there you may spend your legs in winter a whole afternoon; converse,
plot, laugh, and talk anything; jest at your creditor, even to his face; and in the
evening, even by lamp-light, steal out, and so cozen a whole covey of abominable
catchpoles.
Never be seen to mount the steps into the choir, but upon a high festival-day, to
prefer the fashion of your doublet;
and especially if the singing-boys seem to take note of you; for they are able to
buzz your praises above their anthems, if their voices have not lost their maidenheads:
but be sure your silver spurs dog
your heels, and then the boys will swarm about you like so many white butterflies;
when you in the open choir shall draw forth a perfumed embroidered purse, the glorious
sight of which will entice many countrymen from their devotion to wondering; and
quoit silver into the boys' hands,
that it may be heard above the first lesson, although it be read in a voice as big
as one of the great organs.
This noble and notable act being performed, you are to vanish presently out of the
choir, and to appear again in the walk: but in any wise be not observed to tread
there long alone; for fear you be suspected to be a gallant cashiered from the society
of captains and fighters.
36
Suck this humour up especially: put off to none, unless his hatband be of a newer
fashion than yours, and three degrees quainter: but for him that wears a trebled
cypress about his hat, though
he were an alderman's son, never move to him; for he's suspected to be worse than
a Gull, and not worth the putting off to, that cannot observe the time of his hatband,
nor know what fashioned block is most kin to his head: for, in my opinion, that brain
that cannot choose his felt well, being the head ornament, must needs pour folly
into all the rest of the members, and be an absolute confirmed fool in summâ totali.
All the diseased horses in a tedious siege cannot shew so many fashions, as are to be seen for nothing, every day,
in Duke Humphrey's walk. If therefore you determine to enter into a new suit, warn
your tailor to attend you in Paul's, who, with his hat in his hand, shall like a
spy discover the stuff, colour, and fashion of any doublet or hose that dare be seen
there; and stepping behind a pillar to fill his table-books
with those notes, will presently send you into the world an accomplished man; by
which means you shall wear your clothes in print with the first edition.
But if fortune favour you so much as to make you no more than a mere country gentleman,
or but some three degrees removed from him (for which I should be very sorry, because
your London experience will cost you dear before you shall have the wit to know what
you are) then take this lesson along with you: the first time that you venture into
Paul's, pass through the body of the church like a porter,yet presume not to fetch
so much as one whole turn in the middle aisle, no, nor to cast an eye to Si quis door, pasted and plastered up with serving-men's
supplications, before you have paid tribute to
37
the top of Paul's
steeple with a single penny; and, when you are mounted there, take heed how you
look down into the yard, for the rails are as rotten as your great grandfather; and
thereupon it will not be amiss if you inquire how Kit Woodroffe durst vault over, and what reason
he had for's, to put his neck in hazard of reparations. From hence you may descend
to talk about the horse
that went up, and strive, if you can, to know his keeper; take the day of the
month, and the number of the steps, and suffer yourself to believe verily that it
was not a horse, but something else in the likeness of one: which wonders you may
publish, when you return into the country, to the great amazement of all farmers'
daughters, that will almost swound
at the report, and never recover till their bans be asked twice in the church.
But I have not left you yet. Before you come down again, I would desire you to draw
your knife, and grave your name, or, for want of a name, the mark which you clap
on your sheep, in great characters upon the leads, by a number of your brethren,
both citizens and country gentlemen: and so you shall be sure to have your name lie
in a coffin of lead, when yourself shall be wrapt in a winding-sheet: and indeed
the top of Paul's contains more names than Stow's
Chronicle. These lofty tricks being played, and you, thanks to your feet, being
safely arrived at the stairs' foot again; your next worthy work is to repair to my
Lord
Chancellor's tomb, and, if you can but reasonably spell, bestow some time upon
the reading of Sir
Philip Sidney's brief epitaph; in the compass of an hour you may make shift to
stumble it out. The great dial is your last monument: there bestow some half of the
three score minutes, to observe the sauciness of the jacks that
38
are above the man in the moon there; the strangeness of the motion will quit your
labour. Besides, you may here have fit occasion to discover your watch, by taking
it forth and setting the wheels to the time
of Paul's; which, I assure you, goes truer by five notes than St. Sepulchre's chimes. The benefit that will
arise from hence is this, that you publish your charge
in maintaining a gilded clock; and withal the world shall know that you are a timepleaser.
By this I imagine you have walked your bellyful; and thereupon being weary, or, which
rather I believe, being most gentlemanlike hungry, it is fit that I brought you into the Duke; so, because he follows the fashion of great men, in keeping no house,
and that therefore you must go seek your dinner, suffer me to take you by the hand,
and lead you into an ordinary.
39
Chapter v.
How a young Gallant should behave himself in an Ordinary.
FIRST, having diligently inquired out an ordinary of the largest reckoning, whither
most of your courtly gallants do resort, let it be your use to repair thither some half hour
after eleven; for then you shall find most of your fashionmongers planted in
the room waiting for meat. Ride thither upon your Galloway
nag, or your Spanish jennet,
a swift ambling pace, in your hose and doublet (gilt rapier and poniard bestowed
in their places), and your French lackey carrying your cloak, and running before
you; or rather in a coach, for that will both hide you from the basilisk eyes of your creditors, and outrun a
whole kennel of bitter-mouthed sergeants.
Being arrived in the room, salute not any but those of your acquaintance: walk up
and down by the rest as scornfully and as carelessly as a gentleman-usher: select
some friend, having first thrown off your cloak, to walk up and down the room with
you; let him be suited, if you can, worse by far than yourself; he will be a foil
to you; and this will be a means to publish your clothes better than Paul's, a tennis-court,
or a playhouse: discourse as loud as you can, no matter to what purpose; if you but
make a noise, and laugh in fashion, and have a good sour face to promise quarrelling,
you shall be much observed.
41
If you be a soldier, talk how often you have been in action; as the Portingale voyage, Cales voyage, the Island voyage; besides some eight or nine employments
in Ireland, and the Low Countries: then you may discourse how honourably your Grave
used you (observe that you call your Grave
Maurice "your Grave"); how often you have drunk with Count such a one,
and such a Count, on your knees to your Grave's health; and let it be your virtue
to give place neither to St. Kynock,
nor to any Dutchman whatsoever in the seventeen
provinces, for that soldier's compliment
of drinking. And, if you perceive that the untravelled company about you take this
down well, ply them with more such stuff, as, how you have interpreted between the
French king and a great lord of Barbary, when they have been drinking healths together:
and that will be an excellent occasion to publish your languages, if you have them;
if not, get some fragments of French, or small parcels
of Italian, to fling about the table; but beware how you speak any Latin there; your
ordinary most commonly hath no more to do with Latin, than a desperate town of garrison
hash.
If you be a courtier, discourse of the obtaining of suits; of your mistress's favours,
&c. Make inquiry, if any gentleman at board have any suit, to get which he would
use the good means of a great man's interest with the king; and withal, if you have
not so much grace left in you as to blush, that you are, thanks to your stars, in
mighty credit; though in your own conscience you know, and are guilty to yourself,
that you dare not, but only upon the privileges of handsome clothes, presume to peep
into the presence. Demand if there be any gentleman, whom any there is acquainted
with, that
42
is troubled
with two offices, or any vicar with two churchlivings; which will politicly insinuate, that your inquiry after them
is because you have good means to obtain them. Yea; and rather than your tongue should
not be heard in the room, but that you
should sit like an ass, with your finger in your mouth, and speak nothing, discourse
how often this lady hath sent her coach for you, and how often you have sweat in
the tennis-court with that great lord; for indeed the sweating together in France (I mean the society of tennis) is a great argument
of most dear affection, even between noblemen and peasants.
If you be a poet, and come into the ordinary (though it can be no great glory to
be an ordinary poet), order yourself thus. Observe no man; doff not cap to that gentleman
to-day at dinner, to whom, not two nights since, you were beholden for a supper;
but, after a turn or two in the room, take occasion, pulling out your gloves, to
have some epigram, or satire, or sonnet fastened in one of them, that may, as it
were unwittingly to you,
offer itself to the gentlemen; they will presently desire it; but, without much conjuration from them, and
a pretty kind of counterfeit loathness in yourself, do not read it; and, though it
be none of your own, swear you made it. Marry, if you chance to get into your hands
any witty thing of another man's
that is somewhat better; I would counsel you then, if demand be made who composed
it, you may say: "Faith, a learned gentleman, a very worthy friend." And
this seeming to lay it on another man will be counted either modesty in you, or a
sign that you are not ambitious of praise; or else that you dare not take it upon
you, for fear of the sharpness it carries with it. Besides, it will add
43
much to your fame to let your tongue walk faster than your teeth, though you be never
so hungry: and, rather than you should sit like a dumb coxcomb, to repeat by heart
either some verses of your own, or of any other man's, stretching even very good
lines upon the rack of censure; though it be against all law, honesty, or conscience:
it may chance save you the price of your ordinary, and beget you other supplements. Marry; I would further entreat our
poet to be in league with the mistress of the ordinary; because from her, upon condition
that he will but rime knights and young gentlemen to her house, and maintain the
table in good fooling, he may easily make up his mouth at her cost, gratis.
Thus much for particular men. But in general let all that are in ordinary pay march after the sound of these directions.
Before the meat come smoking to the board, our gallant must draw out his tobacco-box,
the ladle for the cold snuff into the nostril, the tongs and prining iron; all which artillery may be of gold or
silver, if he can reach to the price of it; it will be a reasonable useful pawn at
all times, when the current of his money falls out to run low. And here you must
observe to know in what state tobacco is in town, better than the merchants; and
to discourse of the poticaries where it is to be sold; and to be able to speak of
their wines, as readily as the
poticary himself reading
the barbarous hand of a doctor:
then let him shew his several tricks in taking it, as the whiff, the ring,
&c., for these are compliments
that gain gentlemen no mean respect, and for which indeed they are more worthily
noted, I ensure you, than for
any skill that they have in learning.
44
When you are set down to dinner, you must eat as impudently as can be, for that's
most gentlemanlike: when your knight is upon his stewed mutton, be you presently,
though you be but a captain, in the bosom of your goose; and, when your justice of
peace is knuckledeep in goose, you may, without disparagement to your blood, though
you have a lady to your mother, fall very manfully to your woodcocks.
You may rise in dinner-time to ask for a close-stool, protesting to all the gentlemen
that it costs you a hundred pound a year in physic, besides the annual pension which
your wife allows her doctor; and, if you please, you may, as your great French lord
doth, invite some special friend of yours from the table, to hold discourse with
you as you sit in that withdrawing-chamber; from whence being returned again to the
board, you shall sharpen the wits of all the eating gallants about you, and do them
great pleasure to ask what pamphlets or poems a man might think fittest to wipe his
tail with; (marry, this talk will be somewhat foul, if you carry not a strong perfume
about you ;) and, in propounding this question, you may abuse the works of any man;
deprave his writings that you cannot equal; and purchase to yourself in time the
terrible name of a severe critic; nay, and be one of the college, if you'll be liberal enough, and, when your
turn comes, pay for their suppers.
After dinner, every man as his business leads him, some to dice, some to drabs, some to plays, some to take up friends in the court,
some to take up money
in the city, some to lend testers
in Paul's, others to borrow crowns upon the Exchange: and thus, as the people is
said to be a beast of many heads,
45
yet all those heads like hydras', ever growing, as various in their horns as wondrous
in their budding and branching; so, in an ordinary, you shall find the variety of
a whole kingdom in a few apes of the kingdom.
You must not swear in your dicing; for that argues a violent impatience to depart
from your money, and in time will betray a men's need. Take heed of it. No; whether
you be at primero, or hazard, you shall sit as patiently, though you lose
a whole half-year's exhibition,
as a disarmed gentle man does when he's in the unmerciful fingers of sergeants. Marry;
I will allow you to sweat privately, and tear six or seven score pair of cards, be the damnation of some dozen
or twenty bale of dice,
and forewear play a thousand times in an hour; but not swear. Dice yourself into
your shirt; and, if you have a beard that your friend will lend but an angel upon,
shave it off, and pawn that, rather than to go home blind
to your lodging. Further
it is to be remembered; he that is a great gamester may be trusted for a quarter's
board at all times; and apparel provided, if need be.
At your twelvepenny ordinary, you may give any justice of peace, or young knight,
if he sit but one degree towards the equinoctial of the saltcellar,
leave to pay for the wine; and he shall not refuse it, though it be a week before
the receiving of his quarter's rent, which is a time albeit of good hope, yet of
present necessity.
There is another ordinary, to which your London usurer, your stale bachelor, and
your thrifty attorney do resort; the price threepence; the rooms as full of company
as a jail; and indeed divided into several wards, like the beds of an hospital. The
compliment between these is not much, their
46
words few; for the belly hath no ears: every man's eye here is upon the other man's
trencher; to note whether his fellow lurch
him, or no: if they chance to discourse, it is of nothing but of statutes, bonds,
recognizances, fines, recoveries, audits, rents, subsidies, sureties, inclosures,
liveries, indictments, outlawries, feoffments, judgments, commissions, bankerouts, amercements, and of such horrible matter;
that when a lieutenant dines with his punk
in the next room, he thinks verily the men are conjuring. I can find nothing at this
ordinary worthy the sitting down for; therefore the cloth shall be taken away, and
those, that are thought good enough to be guests here, shall be too base to be waiters
at your grand ordinary; at which your gallant tastes these commodities: he shall
fare well, enjoy good company, receive all the news ere the post can deliver his
packet, be perfect where
the best bawdy-houses stand, proclaim his good clothes, know this man to drink well,
that to feed grossly, the other to swagger roughly; he shall, if he be minded to
travel, put
out money upon his return, and have hands enough to receive it upon any terms
of repayment; and no question, if he be poor, he shall now and then light upon some
Gull or other whom he may skelder,
after the genteel fashion, of money. By this time the parings of fruit and cheese
are in the voider; cards and
dice lie stinking in the fire; the guests are all up; the gilt rapiers ready to be
hanged; the French lackey and
Irish footboy shrugging at the doors, with their masters' hobby-horses, to ride to the new play: that's the
rendezvous: thither they are galloped in
post. Let us take a pair of oars, and now
lustily after them.
47
Chapter vi.
How a Gallant should behave himself in a Playhouse.
THE theatre is your poets'
Royal Exchange, upon which their muses, that are now turned to merchants, meeting,
barter away that light commodity of words for a lighter ware than wordsöplaudities, and the breath of the great beast; which, like the threatenings
of two cowards, vanish all into air. Players are
their factors, who put away the stuff, and make the best of it they possibly can,
as indeed 'tis their parts so to do. Your gallant, your courtier, and your captain
had wont to be the soundest paymasters, and, I think, are still the surest chapmen: and these, by means that their heads are well
stocked, deal upon this comical freight by the gross; when your groundling and gallery-commoner buys his sport by the penny, and, like a haggler,
is glad to utter it again by retailing.
Sithence then the place
is so free in entertainment, allowing a stool as well to the farmer's son as to your
templar; that your stinkard has the selfsame liberty to be there in his tobacco-fumes,
which your sweet courtier hash; and that your carman and tinker claim as strong a
voice in their suffrage, and sit to give judgement on the play's life and death,
as well as the proudest Momus
among the tribe of critic: it
is fit that he, whom the most tailors' bills do
E
49
make room for, when he comes, should not be basely, like a viol, cased up in a corner.
Whether therefore the gatherers
of the public
or private playhouse stand to receive the afternoon's rent; let our gallant,
having paid it, presently advance himself up to the throne of the stage; I mean not
into the lords' room,
which is now but the stage's suburbs; no, those boxes, by the iniquity of custom,
conspiracy of waiting-women and gentlemen-ushers that there sweat together, and the
covetousness of sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the rear; and much new satin
is there damned, by being smothered to death in darkness. But on the very rushes
where the comedy is to dance, yea, and under the state of Cambyses himself, must our feathered
estrich, like a piece of ordnance,
be planted valiantly, because impudently, beating down the mews and hisses of the
opposed rascality.
For do but cast up a reckoning, what large comings in are pursed up by sitting on
the stage. First, a conspicuous eminence is gotten; by which means, the best and
most essential parts of a gallant, good clothes, a proportionable leg, white hand,
the Persian lock, and a tolerable
beard, are perfectly revealed.
By sitting on the stage, you have a signed patent to engross the whole commodity
of censure, may lawfully presume to be a girder,
and stand at the helm to steer the passage of scenes; yet no man shall once offer
to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent, over-weening coxcomb.
By sitting on the stage, you may, without travelling for it, at the very next door
ask whose play it is; and, by
50
that quest of inquiry, the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if you know
not the author, you may rail against him; and peradventure so behave yourself, that
you may enforce the author to know you.
By sitting on the stage, if you be a knight, you may happily
get you a mistress; if a mere Fleet-street gentleman, a wife; but assure yourself,
by continual residence, you are the first and principal man in election to begin
the number of "We three."
By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a justice in examining of plays,
you shall put yourself into such true scenical authority, that some poet shall not
dare to present his muse rudely
upon your eyes, without having first unmasked her, rifled her, and discovered all
her bare and most mystical parts before you at a tavern; when you most knightly shall,
for his pains, pay for both their suppers.
By sitting on the stage, you may, with small cost, purchase the dear acquaintance
of the boys; have a good stool
for sixpence; at any time know what particular part any of the infants present; get
your match lighted; examine the playsuits' lace, and perhaps win wagers upon laying
'tis copper; &c. And to conclude; whether you be a fool, or a justice of peace;
a cuckold, or a captain; a Lord Mayor's son, or a dawcock;
a knave, or an under-sheriff; of what stamp soever you be; current or counterfeit;
the stage, like time,
will bring you to most perfect light, and lay you open. Neither are you to be hunted
from thence; though the scarecrows in the yard
hoot at you, hiss at you, spit at you, yea, throw dirt even in your teeth: 'tis most
gentlemanlike
51
patience to endure all this, and to laugh at the silly animals. But if the rabble,
with a full throat, cry: "Away with the fool!" you were worse than a madman
to tarry by it; for the gentleman and the fool should never sit on the stage together.
Marry; let this observation go hand in hand with the rest; or rather, like a country
serving-man, some five yards before them. Present not yourself on the stage, especially
at a new play, until the quaking
Prologue hath by rubbing got
colour into his cheeks, and is ready to give the trumpets
their cue that he's upon
point to enter; for then it is time, as though you were one of the properties,
or that you dropped out of the hangings, to creep from behind the arras, with your
tripos or three-footed stool in one hand, and a teston
mounted between a forefinger and a thumb in the other; for, if you should bestow
your person upon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is but half full, your apparel
is quite eaten up, the fashion lost, and the proportion of your body in more danger
to be devoured than if it were served up in the Counter amongst the poultry: avoid
that as you would the bastone.
It shall crown you with rich commendation, to laugh aloud in the midst of the most
serious and saddest scene of the terriblest tragedy, and to let that clapper, your
tongue, be tossed so high, that all the house may ring of it; your lords use it;
your knights are apes to the lords, and do so too; your inn-o'-court man is zany
to the knights, and (many very
scurvily) comes likewise limping after it: be thou a beagle to them all, and never
lin snuffing till you have scented
them: for by talking and laughing, like a ploughman in a morris, you heap Pelion
upon Ossa, glory
52
upon glory: as first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the
players, and only follow you, the simplest dolt in the house snatches up your name,
and' when he meets you in the streets, or that you fall into his hands in the middle
of a watch, his word shall be taken for you; he'll cry "He's such a gallant,"
and you pass: secondly, you publish your temperance to the world, in that you seem
not to resort thither to taste vain pleasures with a hungry appetite; but only as
a gentleman to spend a foolish hour or two, because you can do nothing else: thirdly,
you mightily disrelish the audience, and disgrace the author: marry; you take up,
though it be at the worst hand, a strong opinion of your own judgement, and enforce
the poet to take pity of your weakness, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bring you
into a better paradise, only to stop your mouth.
If you can, either for love or money, provide yourself a lodging by the water-side;
for, above the conveniency
it brings to shun shoulder-clapping,
and to ship away your cockatrice betimes in the morning, it adds a kind of state
unto you to be carried from thence to the stairs of your playhouse. Hate a sculler,
(remember that,) worse than to be acquainted with one o' th' scullery. No your oars
are your only sea-crabs, board them, and take heed you never go twice together with
one pair; often shifting is a great credit to gentlemen, and that dividing of your
fare will make the poor water-snakes be ready to pull you in pieces to enjoy your
custom. No matter whether, upon landing, you have money, or no; you may swim in twenty
of their boats over the river upon ticket: marry; when silver comes in, remember
to pay treble their fare; and it will make your
53
flounder-catchers to send more thanks after you when you do not draw, than when you do; for they know it will be their
own another day.
Before the play begins, fall to cards; you may win or lose, as fencers do in a prize, and beat one another by
confederacy, yet share the money when you meet at supper: notwithstanding, to gull the ragamuffins that stand
aloof gaping at you, throw the cards, having first torn four or five of them, round
about the stage, just upon the third sound, us though you had lost; it skills not if the four knaves lie on their backs, and
outface the audience; there's none such fools as dare take exceptions at them; because,
ere the play go off, better knaves than they will fall into the company.
Now, sir; if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammed you, or hath had
a flirt at your mistress, or hath brought either your feather, or your red beard, or your little legs,
&c. on the stage; you shall disgrace him worse than by tossing him in a blanket,
or giving him the bastinado in a tavern, if, in the middle of his play, be it pastoral
or comedy, moral or tragedy, you rise with a screwed and discontented face from your
stool to be gone; no matter whether the scenes be good, or no; the better they are,
the worse do you distaste them: and, being on your feet, sneak not away like a coward;
but salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spread either on the rushes, or
on stools about you; and draw what troop you can from the stage after you; the mimics
are beholden to you for allowing them elbowroom: their poet cries, perhaps, "a
pox go with you"; but care not you for that; there's no music without frets.
54
Marry; if either the company, or indisposition of the weather bind you to sit it
out; my counsel is then that you turn plain ape: take up a rush, and tickle the earnest
ears of your fellow gallants, to make other fools fall a laughing; mew at passionate
speeches; blare at merry; find fault with the music; whew at the children's action;
whistle at the songs; and, above all, curse the sharers,
that whereas the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embroidered felt
and feather, Scotch fashion, for your mistress in the court, or your punk in the
city, within two hours after you encounter with the very same block on the stage,
when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that morning.
To conclude: hoard up the finest play scraps you can get; upon which your lean wit
may most savourly feed, for want of other stuff, when the Arcadian and Euphuized gentlewomen have their tongues
sharpened to set upon you: that quality, next to your shittlecock, is the only furniture to a courtier
that's but a new beginner, and is but in his A B C of compliment. The next places
that are filled, after the playhouses be emptied, are, or ought to be, taverns; into
a tavern then let us next march, where the brains of one hogshead must be beaten
out to make up another.
55
Chapter vii.
How a Gallant should behave himself in a Tavern.
WHOSOEVER desires to be a men of good reckoning in the city; and, like your French
lord, to have as many tables furnished as lackies, who, when they keep least, keep
none; whether he be a young quat
of the first year's revenue; or some austere and sullen-faced steward, who, in despite
of a great beard, a satin suit, and a chain of gold wrapt in cypress, proclaims himself
to any, but to those to whom his lord owes money, for a rank coxcomb; or whether
he be a country gentleman, that brings his wife up to learn the fashion, see the
tombs at Westminster, the lions in the Tower, or to take physic; or else is some
young farmer, who many times makes his wife in the country believe he hath suits
in law, because he will come up to his lechery; be he of what stamp he will that
hath money in his purse, and a good conscience to spend it; my counsel is that he
take his continual diet at a tavern, which out of question is the only rendezvous
of boon company; and the drawers the most nimble, the most bold, and most sudden
proclaimers of your largest bounty.
Having therefore thrust yourself into a case
most in fashion, how coarse soever the stuff be, 'tis no matter, so it hold fashion;
your office is, if you mean to do your judgement right, to inquire out those taverns
which are best customed,
57
whose masters are oftenest drunk (for that confirms their taste, and that they choose
wholesome wines), and such as stand furthest from the Counters; where, landing yourself and your followers,
your first compliment shall be to grow most inwardly acquainted with the drawers;
to learn their names, as Jack, and Will, and Tom; to dive into their inclinations,
as whether this fellow useth to the fencing-school, this to the dancing-school; whether
that young conjurer in hogsheads at midnight keeps a gelding now and then to visit
his cockatrice, or whether
he love dogs, or be addicted to any other eminent and citizen-like quality; and protest
yourself to be extremely in love,
and that you spend much money in a year upon anv one of those exercises which you
perceive is followed by them. The use which you shall make of this familiarity is
this: if you want money five or six days together, you may still pay the reckoning
with this most gentlemanlike language, "Boy, fetch me money from the bar";
and keep yourself most providently from a hungry melancholy in your chamber. Besides,
you shall be sure, if there be but one faucet that can betray neat wine to the bar,
to have that arraigned before you, sooner than a better and worthier person.
The first question you are to make; after the discharging of your pocket of tobacco,
and pipes, and the household stuff thereto belonging; shall be for an inventory of
the kitchen: for it were more than most tailor-like, and to be suspected you were
in league with some kitchen-wench, to descend yourself, to offend your stomach with
the sight of the larder, and, happily,
to grease your accoutrements. Having therefore received this bill, you shall, like
a captain putting up dead
58
pays, have many salads
stand on your table, as it were for blanks to the other more serviceable dishes:
and, according to the time of the year, vary your fare; as capon is a stirring meat
sometime, oysters are a
swelling meat sometimes, trout a tickling meat sometimes, green goose and woodcock a delicate meat sometimes;
especially in a tavern, where you shall sit in as great state as a churchwarden amongst
his poor parishioners at Pentecost or Christmas.
For your drink, let not your physician confine you to any one particular liquor;
for as it is requisite that a gentleman should not always be plodding in one art,
but rather be a general scholar, that is, to have a lick at all sorts of learning,
and away; so 'tis not fitting a man should trouble his head with sucking at one grape;
but that he may be able, now
there is a general peace, to drink any stranger drunk
in his own element of drink, or more properly in his own mist language.
Your discourse at the table must be such as that which you utter at your ordinary;
your behaviour the same, but somewhat more careless; for, where your expence is great,
let your modesty be less: and, though you should be mad in a tavern, the largeness
of the items will bear with your incivility; you may, without prick to your conscience,
set the want of your wit against the superfluity and sauciness of their reckonings.
If you desire not to be haunted with fiddlers; who by the statute have as much liberty
as rogues to travel into any place, having the passport of the house about them;
bring then no women along with you: but, if you love the company of all the drawers,
never sup without your cockatrice;
59
for, having her there, you shall be sure of most officious attendance. Inquire what
gallants sup in the next room; and, if they be any of your acquaintance, do not you,
after the city fashion, send them in a pottle of wine, and your name, sweetened in
two pitiful papers of sugar, with some Slthy apology crammed into the mouth of a
drawer; but rather keep a boy in fee, who under-hand shall proclaim you in every
room, what a gallant fellow you are, how much you spend yearly in taverns, what a
great gamester, what custom you bring to the house, in what witty discourse you maintain
a table, what gentlewomen or citizens' wives you can with a wet finger have at any time to sup
with you, and such like; by which encomiastics
of his, they that know you not shall admire you, and think themselves to be brought
into a paradise but to be meanly in your acquaintance; and, if any of your endeared
friends be in the house, and beat
the same ivy-bush that yourself does, you may join ompanies, and be drunk together
most publicly.
But, in such a deluge of drink, take heed that no man counterfeit himself drunk,
to free his purse from the danger of the shot;
'tis an usual thing now amongst gentlemen; it had wont be the quality of cockneys: I would advise you to leave so
much brains in your head, as to prevent this. When the terrible reckoning, like an
indictment, bids you hold up your hand, and that you must answer it at the bar; you
must not abate one penny in any particular; no, though they reckon cheese to you,
when you have neither eaten any, nor could ever abide it, raw or toasted: but cast
your eye only upon the totalis,
and no further; for to traverse
the bill would betray you to be acquainted with the rates of the
60
market: nay more; it would make the vintners believe you were pater-familias,
and kept a house; which, I assure you, is not now in fashion.
If you fall to dice after supper, let the drawers be as familiar with you as your
barber, and venture their silver amongst you; no matter where they had it; you are
to cherish the unthriftness of such young tame pigeons, if you be a right gentleman:
for when two are yoked together by the purse strings, and draw the chariot of madam
Prodigality; when one faints in the way and slips his horns, let the other rejoice
and laugh at him.
At your departure forth the house, to kiss mine hostess over the bar, or to accept
of the courtesy of the cellar when 'tis offered you by the drawers, (and you must
know that kindness never creeps upon them, but when they see you almost cleft to the shoulders,) or to bid any
of the vintners good night,
is as commendable as for a barber after trimming to lave your face with sweet water.
To conclude: count it an honour, either to invite, or to be invited to any rifling; for commonly, though you find much satin there,
yet you shall likewise find many citizens' sons, and heirs, and younger brothers
there, who smell out such feasts more greedily than tailors hunt upon Sundays after
weddings. And let any hook draw you either to a fencer's supper, or to a player's
that acts such a part for a wager; for by this means you shall get experience, by
being guilty to their abominable shaving.
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Chapter viii.
How a Gallant is to behave himself passing through the City, at all Hours of the Night; and how to pass by any Watch.
AFTER the sound of pottle-pots is out of your ears; and that the spirit of wine
and tobacco walks in your brain; the tavern door being shut upon your back, cast
about to pass through the widest and goodliest streets in the city. And if your means
cannot reach to the keeping of a boy, hire one of the drawers to be as a lanthorn
unto your feet, and to light you home; and, still as you approach near any nightwalker
that is up as late as yourself, curse and swear, like one that speaks high Dutch, in a lofty voice, because your men have
used you so like a rascal in not waiting upon you, and vow the next morning to pull
their blue cases over
their ears; though, if your chamber were well searched, you give only sixpence a
week to some old woman to make your bed, and that she is all the serving-creatures
you give wages to. If you smell a watch, and that you may easily do, for commonly
they eat onions to keep them in sleeping, which they account a medicine against cold; or, if you come within
danger of their brown bills; let him that is your candlestick, and holds up your
torch from dropping, for to march after a link is shoe-maker like; let ignis fatuus,
I say, being within
63
the reach of the constable's staff, ask aloud, "Sir Giles,"öor "Sir
Abram,"ö"will you turn this way, or down that street?" It skills not, though there be none dubbed in your bunch;
the watch will wink at you, only for the love they bear to arms and knighthood. Marry;
if the sentinel and his court of guard stand strictly upon his martial law, and cry
"Stand," commanding you to give the word, and to shew reason why your ghost
walks so late; do it in some jest; for that will show you have a desperate wit, and
perhaps make him and his halberdiers afraid to lay foul hands upon you; or, if you
read a mittimus in
the constable's book; counterfeit to be a Frenchman, a Dutchman, or any other nation
whose country is in peace with your own, and you may pass the pikes; for, being not
able to understand you, they cannot by the customs of the city take your examination,
and so by consequence they have nothing to say to you.
If the night be old, and that your lodging be in some place into which no artillery
of words can make a breach; retire, and rather assault the doors of your punk, or,
not to speak broken English, your sweet mistress, upon whose white bosom you may
languishingly consume the rest of darkness that is left in ravishing though not restorative
pleasures, without expences, only by virtue of four or five oaths (when the siege
breaks up, and at your marching away with bag and baggage) that the last night you
were at dice, and lost so much in gold, so much in silver; and seem to vex most that
two such Elizabeth twenty shilling pieces, or four such spur-royals, sent you with a cheese and a baked
meat from your mother, rid away
amongst the rest. By which tragical, yet politic speech, you may not only have
64
your night work done gratis; but also you may take diet there the next day,
and depart with credit, only upon the bare word of a gentleman to make her restitution.
All the way as you pass, especially being approached near some of the gates, talk
of none but lords, and such ladies with whom you have played at primero, or danced in the presence, the very same day;
it is a chance to lock up the lips of an inquisitive bellman: and, being arrived
at your lodging door, which I would counsel you to choose in some sich citizen's
house, salute at parting no man but by the name of "Sir," as though you
had supped with knights; albeit you had none in your company but your perinado or your ingle.
Happily it will be blown
abroad, that you and your shoal of gallants swam through such an ocean of wine, that
you danced so much money out at heels, and that in wildfowl there flew away thus
much; and I assure you, to have the bill of your reckoning lost of purpose, so that
it may be published, will make you to be held in dear estimation: only the danger
is, if you owe money, and that your revealing gets your creditors by the ears; for
then, look to have a peal of ordnance thundering at your chamber-door the next morning.
But if either your tailor, mercer, haberdasher, silkman, cutter, linen-draper, or sempster, stand like a guard
of Switzers about your lodging, watching your uprising, or, if they miss of that,
your down lying in one of the Counters;
you have no means to avoid the galling of their small-shot than by sending out a
light-horseman to call your poticary
to your aid, who, encountering this desperate band of your creditors only with two
or three glasses in his hand, as
F
65
though that day you purged, is able to drive them all to their holes like so many
foxes; for the name of taking physic is a sufficient quietus est to any endangered gentleman,
and gives an acquittance, for the time, to them all; though the twelve companies
stand with their hoods to attend your coming forth, and their officers with them.
I could now fetch you about noon, the hour which I prescribed you before to rise
at, out of your chamber, and carry you with me into Paul's churchyard; where, planting
yourself in a stationer's shop, many instructions are to be given you, what books
to call for, how to censure of new books, how to mew at the old, how to look in your
tables and inquire for such
and such Greek, French, Italian, or Spanish authors, whose names you have there,
but whom your mother for pity would not give you so much wit as to understand. From
thence you should blow yourself into the tobacco-ordinary, where you are likewise
to spend your judgement, like a quack-salver, upon that mystical wonder; to be able
to discourse whether your cane or
your pudding be sweetest,
and which pipe has the best bore, and which burns black, which breaks in the burning,
&c. Or, if you itch to
step into the barber's, a whole dictionary cannot afford more words to set down notes
what dialogues you are to maintain, whilst you are doctor of the chair there. After
your shaving, I could breathe you in a fence-school, and out of that cudgel you into
a dancing-school; in both which I could weary you, by strewing you more tricks than
are in five galleries, or
fifteen prizes. And, to close
up the stomach of this feast, I could make cockneys, whose fathers have left them
well, acknowledge themselves infinitely beholden to
66
me, for teaching them by familiar demonstration how to spend their patrimony, and
to get themselves names, when their fathers are dead and rotten. But, lest too many
dishes should cast you into a surfeit, I will now take away; yet so that, if I perceive
you relish this well, the rest shall be in time prepared for you. Farewell.
FINIS.
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