Steward If he suppose the Book may be made a thrifty diversion to keep them from the greater expense of the Taverne or their Game he may perhaps allow something towards a study And be sure he will be carefull enough to give them so much Law as may be sufficient to maintaine their owne rights and rack their Tenants If he go Constantly to Church t is more to serve himselfe then his God Often because he hopes by being his frequent Auditor he may oblige the Parson to let him his tithes at a low rate or to believe him a man of Conscience that so he may defraud him of his dues without suspicion For the most part this Gentleman is the Patron or has the Impropriation and yet whilest he and his family grow fat by feasting upon the bread of the Altar he grudges him who dispenses freely of the bread of life the very Crums that fall from his table The Church of God thus often starves for want of food whilest such Dogs Eat up the Children's bread Such men's whole Lives are but so many Continued Sacriledges and all they can alledge for themselves comes but to this that they hold their sin as their land by right of Inheritance from their Ancestors Their Coffers grow full by robbing the Sanctuary and at every meal with their sacrilegious teeth like so many ravenous wolves or vultures they teare in pieces the Body of Christ's languishing Spouse But let her dye the Provident Gentleman had rather see her Carkasse then his Chests grow Empty and if by her death he may peaceably enjoy her revenues he will hardly mourn but as such enriched heires use to doe at her funeralls It is long since this Good man turn'd Charity out of dores as an unthrifty Hous-wife and one that made it her busyness to throw all away The Poor come and goe about his gates as hungry birds about a painted Vine at best they meet with an hard Crust and harder language He loves not thus to lend his money though it be to the Lord except he would give him bond to returne him Eight in the Hundred here in this world When our Saviour tells him of an Hundred for one here below and eternall life hereafter in Heaven he hath as little faith to believe as patience to waite for such a reward Yet he could almost wish upon Condition the former part of the promise might be made good to him without Persecution that the later might be reserved for such who can Phancy a God in Heaven better then a thousand pound in hand If this Gentleman can but so farre deny himselfe as to do no open violence or Injury to any man if he can arrive at that degree of Christianity which will enable him to reach the Negative part of Iustice and charity he is apt to think he has made a faire progresse in the way to Heaven And yet God knows he ordinarily mistakes this part too For to win another's estate by some quillet in the Law or by bribing a Judge to over-reach his poor neighbour in an hard Bargain to take advantage of a needy person's present necessity and accordingly raise the price of his Commodity to exact first more then he is able to pay and then make him pay use for his disability to send a poore naked soul to bridewell insteed of an Hospitall to the stocks insteed of a Bed to call him knave and Vagabond that he may have a pretence not to relieve him to suffer a languishing Creature to dye in the street whilst he had enough to spare wherewith to feed and cloath him Or to permit a breach in the walls of Ierusalem when a small summe out of his purse would repare it These he can by no means reckon amongst the species of Injustice or as defects in Charity but therefore counts all good duties as things unnecessary and no way obliging indeed because chargable and seemingly Burthensome and such as contradict that thrifty forecast and necessary providence he holds himselfe tyed to maintain He thinks it a greater degree of wisedom to trust God's providence now for some miraculouse reliefe of the present poore then to rely upon it for the after-enrichment of his posterity Certainly this is the thing that passes so Currently for Providence even amongst those who are counted the wiser and more religious sort of our English Gentlemen But if this can belong to Christianity then must Covetousnesse and a Worldly minde be reckoned amongst our Christian vertues It is alas too evident what good friends such vertues and such Gentlemen have been of late to our Ierusalem whilest our richest Gallantry have all along in these calamitous times chosen rather by a kind of Constrained bounty to reward the Demolishers then voluntarily to part with a farthing to pay the builders of our ruinated Sion Besides this it is not a little to be fear'd that those many Contrary Oathes and Engagements Vowes and protestations which with the help of this sauce of providence have been so readily swallowed I fear I may say by the greatest part of our Gentry will at last expose their soules within no lesse to Corruption then the Contrary Qualities do their Bodies without O how happy might this poore Nation have been even to this day had not the Rich Gentleman under a pretence of a Naturall affection and a Necessary Providence set an higher aestimate upon his own Chest then the Arke of God upon his owne Barne then the Lord's Temple Had he not loved his Interest more then his Religion the safety of his Body more then the Salvation of his Soul his Naturall children more then his Heavenly Father and his money above them all §. 4. The Prudent Gentleman By this short view I have given you of the Provident Gentleman I suppose you will grant him to be none of those we may call the best or such as it might be wished wee had many of in our Nation And truly the Prudent Gentleman I mean him who is now adayes knowne by that name is not of a much Nobler dye very often you shall find him to be the very same alwayes very neer of kind to the former Cowardice is as much afraid to be known and therefore as loath to walk without her maske as Covetousness and would as gladly arrogate to her selfe the never more abused names then now of a wise caution and a Christian Prudence as that other of a vertuous thrift and necessary Providence Insteed of being as wisedome commanded his Disciples wise as serpents Gentlemen are become meer Serpents in wisedom and have render'd themselves very capable of that Commendable Character which was long agoe given to the Serpent They are more subtile then all the beasts of the field and the Prudence they boast of and under which they vaile a Carnall mind and a Carking Cowardly soul is nothing else but a worldly Policy or rather a Devillish Subtilty They have made one halfe of the text quarrel with
pampering up his lusts and making himselfe a Glorious sinner Seeing he has already received so bountifull a reward for doing so little he accounts it a shame for the future not to make himselfe a fit object for a greater by doing both more and better Such an Ingenuous Spirit hath the Gentleman that he thinks every reward for what 's past an obligation to future good services and he had rather wait with patience for all his arreares together then ever be thought to have received the last payment here If it be his lot to groan out his daies under the heavy pressures of affliction he is not like the Inconsiderate Drunkard who in the morning after his double Intemperance in drinking and sleeping complaineth that his head akes and begins to Curse his Pillow and his Bed-maker for his want of ease forgetting to turne that sinne out of dores which occasion'd all this the day before Nor like a Wretched and Impenitent Malefactor who when he is hurried away to a just Execution does nothing but cry out upon the hard-heart of his Iudg and the Rigour of the Lawes Cursing the Executioner but forgetting to repent him of the Murther or the Robbery which brought his Body into the hands of this executioner and will unrepented of deliver his Soul into the farre lesse mercifull of another hereafter But like a Naturall and hopefull child he seriously Considers his own Errors which provoked his father thus to Chastise him and so by stroking the hand and kissing the Rod and humbly begging pardon for his offence he sets his father's affections which before he had turn'd aside not lost into their own proper Channel again He looks upon his Afflictions with one eye as Corrections and so blames himselfe for the Occasion but blesseth God for the Charity with the other as Tryals and so makes it his care that he come not all Drosse out of the Furnace The same Fire which Consumes others doth but refine his soul and separating from it the more grosse and Terrene Mixtures makes it the fitter for Heaven He grudges not to undergoe the Winnowing so he may be sure to loose the Chaffe and be made all wheat such as his Lord may think fit to receive into his Garner He is ashamed to think that God should lose his paines and the more he thrashes find onely more straw but lesse Corne rather like good grain from the Mill he comes forth from the grinding more in measure purer in Colour and readier for use and service Though a Bryar or a Thorne may scratch or prick his heel a little in his way to Heaven and draw a little uselesse blood though he may sometimes be so intangled in the Brambles that he may be forced to part with something of his fleece and perhaps so much of the skin too as may make it smart a while Yet has he too high a soul to fall so much within the reach of these Creeping brambles as to receive from them the least Scratch in his face He alwaies carries an head as erect as his hopes are high and takes great care that neither his Religion his Honesty nor his Honour be made to suffer by it He dares not make either a Base Compliance with the vices of his persecutors the refuge of his Cowardice or the wings of the Potent by bribing their Ambition with Flattery and Dissimulation his Sanctuary of protection He will not attempt the lightâ—ning of his sufferings by a voluntary casting any part of his estate into the devouring Treasury of the Churche's Enemy nor hope to appease the wrath of a displeased God by bringing an oblation to the Avarice of his oppressors neither doth he essay to drown his sorrowes in the Bottome of his Cup But he flies and takes Sanctuary at the Hornes of the Altar and by a Magnanimity which becomes a Gentleman showes that true Honour is a Iewel indeed such as will not break with the Hammer His Religion like the Flint never so much discovers those Holy fires of zeale and devotion which were not before so apparent as when it most experiences the violence of the hardest steel And his Innocence is so perfectly Malliable that the more you beat it the broader it growes In short the Gentleman carries himselfe â—o evenly betwixt these Contrary windes that he is neither shaken by the one nor puff'd up with the other He is such in prosperity that he does not fear Adversity and such in adversity that he needs not to wish for Prosperity such indeed in both that it shall never repent him that he hath tasted either §. 13. His respect and affection for his Country The true Gentleman is no lesse Serviceable to his Countrey then Honourable in himselfe He cannot Phancy himselfe so great as to forget that he is but a creature and so made for something and 'till he can perswade himselfe to be a God who is his own End and Happinesse he cannot think that he was made onely to serve himselfe He that made him made him a Brother to many and he owes a duty of love unto them all He is not like a lump of Gold in the Bowels of the Earth which is neither for sight nor service but like that which having once received the stamp of the Prince is ever after Current and usefull to many Neither resembles he the Glow-worme or a Rotten stick in the Dark which hath no more light then will show it selfe to be something though no body by that light alone knowes what but illuminates nothing else about it no he rather emulates the Sun in the Firmament from which this Inferiour World receives all it's life and vigour Thus the Gentleman is continually scattering the rayes and Influence of his vertues round about him quite through all that lies within the Wide Sphere of his Motion As amongst the Elements the most Noble and Pure is alwaies the most active too and most profitable as well as most High and Distant And as the highest of Bodies to wit the Caelestiall cannot naturally rest but indeed by their Continuall and swift motion do never faile to labour for the Benefit of the whole world besides So is this Little Heaven and Glory of Mankind never without some commendable businesse and Employment and such as shall assuredly at last tend unto the great good and advantage of as many as lie within the Compasse of his Influence The Gentleman without doubt is made for some other end then to stand like a fair and goodly Tulip in a painted Pot in some window or other Corner of the Chamber onely to grace the roome without either smell or other apparent virtue He is rather like the sweet and lovely Rose which perfumes the Aire all about it and is besides no lesse Medicinall then fragrant If ever the Gentleman seem to be Idle he does no more but seem so He onely sets himselfe down a while as he would doe a Bottle of precious Water which has
expect an Invitation from a visible ruine knowing that it is a Necessity not deserving the name of Providence to under-prop the declining wall Neither will a Prudent person cover a dangerous breach in the wall of his house with a superficiall plaister or paint thereby to Cozen the World into a false Opinion of his Counterfet thrift and Providence 'till a sudden fall of the whole house discover at once his folly and his Policy In vain shall the Gentleman by the bare shadow of a vertue endeavour to make the world believe he wants not the substance He must by the reall and undissembled excellencies of a Generous soul sincerely devoted to the service of Religion and Vertue both adde many Sollid Pillars to support the Old and lay a firme Basis for a New structure A Fathers good name deserves a reverent memory in after ages but will never be injured or grow lesse renowned by being out-shone in the Son's virtues It is rather proud thus to grow young again There can be no perpetuall entailment of Honour upon all succeeding posterity The best Gentleman holds his Nobility but by Lease from Heaven which is to be renew'd once at least in every life when a good round summe of Heroick Actions are expected as his Fine God hath his Stewards alwaies ready to receive the Gentleman's rent the Church and State and he that payes not at his day to either of these forfeits all It is no slight sin to suppose God so vainly Prodigall of his Iewels as to think them well disposed of when placed in Swines snouts where they onely serve to root up the Earth and delve in the Dirt. Common Rustick and Plebeian spirits fitted by the hardnesse of their Nature to Dig and plow the ground these are the Out-labourers of God's great Houshold who by the greatnesse of their Necessary Drudgery take off much of the Burden from the more refined sort of Mankind The Gentleman God has chosen to be as it were the steward of his Family and Guardian to his Church and therefore in all Prudence and Gratitude he ought to endeavour a due discharge of so great a trust No Loyterer much lesse a Spend-thrift can be a member of his Family we know the certain wages of such unfaithfull servants He then that thinks himselfe exempted from all that hardship which many others by a leaden soul and an Iron Body besides the course usage of an unkind Fortune are Naturally or Casually sentenced to takes a very preposterous course when he arrogates to himselfe a licence to do ill or to doe nothing If the Gentleman would be valued above others it is but reason if we require him to make it appear that he is of better Mettall then others which is to be judged of not by the Colour but service I would not see the Gentleman's Soul sitting in his beautifull Body like a Breathless Idoll of Gold in a Temple of Silver there to be worship'd by all but doe good to none It is not fit it should be thought onely such a fine gay thing as is sometimes by the choisest of Naturall endowments and Artificiall accomplishments embellish'd into something more then ordinary or burnish'd over into such a slight superficiall gloss as may make it as well as his Body admired and gazed upon by a few Ignorant worldlings Neither should it be his businesse to get his Body alwaies New-molded to the varying humours of the Court and trick'd up in all the late invented Gauderies Gorgeous Accoutrements and Gingling trappings wherewith the Levity of Art has made bold to overload and abuse the Modesty of Honest Nature He that has no Nobler a Soul or Body then these may still be no more then a meer Carcasse such as if it expresse any motion seems rather to be actuated by the multitude of crawling vermine within it sprung from it's own Corruption then by a true Rationall soul inspired by God Allmighty All the Salt of Wit and Ingenuity which such a person usually so much brags of will not be enough to preserve so putrid a Lump from stinking above ground In a word Sir the true Gentleman will labour so to qualify his soul that he may be disposed to doe a service to his God in some proportion answerable to those severall tokens of favour and Honour whereby he has so blest and grace'd him in the eye of the world Seeing God has been pleas'd to advance him some degrees above the Multitude he takes care to raise his soul too to that spirituall hight and pitch of true Piety and Holinesse that when thus advanced in outward Dignity he may not seem a Dwarfe on Horse-back And because the Common Gifts of the most Bountifull Nature will not put a man into a Capacity of performing his part to the full in such an employment much lesse will Idlenesse and Negligence It should be every Gentlemans care in his Youth to give and resigne himselfe wholy up with all his pleasures and Interests to the Care of his Soul that so by the Prudent Industry of a Learned and Godly Instructor seconded with his own Indefatigable pains and patience he may have his Golden parts made truly bright and be as it were midwised afresh unto such a perfection that he may not by the low and beggarly condition of a rude and Ignorant Soul be a Discredit to his Lord or a Scandall to that calling he professeth God Delights in Hâ—nourable though not in prâ—nd attendants and although he is many times pleased to fill up his house and make up the number of his Family with those who have not been very much befriended either by nature in a Noble birth or by Fortune in a Plenteous and prosperous life yet doth he long to see his Religion graced and Credited with a long train of such as the King hath delighted to Honour And blessed be God! the Care of our Ancestors has been such that we want not Nurseries both of Learning and Piety in this Nation such as may afford a breeding to our Young Gentry not unsuitable to their Quality and intended emploiment It is my hearty prayer that these may never be unstocked with such hopefull and Generous Plants as may there grow and thrive 'till they arrive at that Maturity both of Grace and good Literature as well as of Years that they may in due time become not onely strong but also Curiously polished Pillars for the support of those two Glorious Fabricks of Church and State That as by the speciall Indulgence of God they were Honourably borne so by his speciall Grace too they may indeed live both truly profitable to his Saints here and as truly Glorious with them hereafter Thus Sir have I done my best to obey your Commands and as largly and fully as a little time lesse leisure and yet fewer abilities would give me leave I have given you my present thoughts and wishes concerning our English Gentleman I have sent you I fear a very little Kernell in a large Shell but now you have it you may chuse whether you will take the pains to Crack it or throw it into the Fire Whatever it be that here you receive as your Commands gave it birth and my Confidence of your Goodnesse has taught it to speak and goe abroad so does it now submissively expect your sentence whether of life or death Doe what you will with all the rest so you doe but vouchsafe to read thus much in it that I am Sir Your most humble and Obedient Servant The END The ERRATA The reader will frequently meet with a small Errata which he may be pleased either to mend with his pen or with lesse paines to pardon one or two of the Grosser sort I have here noted to his hand Pag 50. Sect 2. l 1. pro as r. is p 141. l. 22. r He owes p 142. l 5. r State p 159. l. 4. r. accoutred p 174. l 1. r is not p 240. l 12. r Shimeis p 249. l 10. r for p 254. l â—enult r Seal
hearing his own names become so Common he is now bribed to stay by the Flattery of this later and securely Lodges in the Gallant 's brest without the lest feare of Disturbance But seeing the Gallant is so great a lover of New Names I hope he will not be troubled If I make bold to adde one more and call him with no lesse reason but in more words The Divel's Ghost For whilest Sathan is put to a large expence of Time and Pains to Haunt and Seduce others Here he meets with one not halfe so coy but such an one as by his unseasonable kindnesse seems to be a trouble rather to the very Fiend by haunting the Divell And doubtlesse if he goe but on halfe so fast a while longer as he has done of late yeares He will tire and Puzzle the whole numerous Hâ—ste of Hell to Invent a variety of objects answerable to that of his Humours To speake him out a little more plainly our English Gentleman as now a daies we commonly meet him is such a strange kind of thing that no one name will fit him Such an Heterogeneous Soule he is that no lesse then a Combination of all the vices in the World must be summon'd in to make up a Partiall Description of him Of an Essentiall Definition I dare hardly think him Capable lest thereby granting him a Compleat Essence I should be forced at lest in a Metaphysicall Notion to call him Good Good-man is a title he hath ever much scorned and it is that which If yet his pride will afford him any he very truly thinks the fittest Compellation for the poore honest Labourer The same he will sometimes vouchsafe to bestow upon those few Tenants his Prodigallity has spared him Such a Complicacy of Evils goes to his Constitution that ere we shall be able to fit him with a name wee must borrow it from Sathan himselfe and call him Legion As sinne and vanity make up his very Essence so can nothing but wonder and shame Compose his Character §. 2. His Nature in Generall You have heard his name and now take a farther Generall description of him thus The Gallant is a Pretty neat Phantasticall Out-side of a man and if you dare alway believe your eye 't is not unlikely you may now and then be so much deceived as to think him Something But a true man you can never Imagine him he hath too long agoe shaked hands with his Reason and now counts it the greatest degree of Basenesse in the world to live what Nature made him or to seeme beholding for any thing unto ought but his own Humour He is a well-digested bundle of most Costly vanities and he is evermore tumbling up and down the streets to gather more of that same Chargeable Dirt as if he should have enough to excuse his sinne when he can at once say it is both glorious and Costly You may call him a Volume of Methodicall Errataes bound up in a gilt Cover and his onely commendation is this that his disorders seem to be orderly and his Errors not Casuall but Studied and he can tell how to sinne most Ingeniously He is a Curiously wrought Cabinet full of Shels and other Trumpery which were much better quite Empty then so emptily full He is a piece of ordinary clay stuck round with Bristol Diamonds Pritty sparkling things which for a time might perhaps make a gay show in a foole 's Cap or on a Dunghill But in a Lapidary's shop amongst true stones have onely so much lustre left as will prove themselves to be but Counterfeit Such a Silly Gloworme may looke like a little Starre in the Darke but it 's Splendor is alwaies sure to be benighted with the Rising Sunne 'T is no small advantage for this fine Sir to live in this Night of the world where that very darknesse of Ignorance which obscures the great vertues of so many good men is the onely thing that makes his wild-fires so visible as to be taken notice of He is the Rich Scabbard of a Leaden Spirit and that very dulnesse of mettall makes him endure so long in the world whilest the keener zeale of nobler Soules soone makes their way for them through the Scabbard into Heaven I doe heartily wish he would give us no reason to call him the painted Sepulchre of a Soule Dead and Rotten in Trespasses and sins If this Comparison will ever fit any man that is no Hypocrite certainly 't is the Swaggaring Gentleman He is a man's skin full of prophanenesses a Paradise full of weeds an Heaven full of Devills or Sathan's Bedchamber too richly hung with Arras of God's Own making such an Excellency would he faine hold in the basest Iniquity He can be thought no better then a Promethean Man at best but a lump of animated dirt kneeded into Humane Shape and if he have any such thing as a Soule which he shall hardly be able to perswade any man to believe that sees how little care he takes to save it it seems to be patch'd up of vice and Bravery If you would come acquainted with his pedigree let Sin be your Herald and it will be sufficient to tell you he was the Sonne of an Offender His very name's enough to blast the Nobility of all that went before him and to breath a perpetuall disgrace upon the sleeping ashes of his worthy Progenitors There may be some question made whether he needs feare going to Hell or no at his death because he has been so well acquainted with it in his life-time whither if he have not leave every day to take his full Carier he think his Soul bereav'd of her Christian Liberty as if he had no other way left him of Imitating the blessed Saviâ—ur of mankind but by often descending into Hell O what a piece of Gallantry is it now a dayes for a man to give his Soul to the Divell in a Frolick It is the part of a Gentlemen to out-brave Damnation and not to be daunted with the thoughts of a future Iudgment A retreat into Sobriety would betray such an Effeminacy of spirit as might argue him in love with a Religion and make the world believe he were such a Coward as might be Frighted into Piety Every petty sinner can outface an Earthly hee 'l doe his best to out-vapour an Heavenly Tribunall and make it appeare unto all that a Gentleman has a Spirit dares goe to Hell before he will be said to feare it Indeed he alone seems to have the art of turning Nature upside-down and will onely be a perfect man at the Pap when he is wean'd he gives both his humanity and Innocence to his Nurse for her wages I am sure he is rarely if ever after that time seen to have either about him In short The Gentleman is nothing that he should be His whole life is a flat Contradiction to his duety His constant study is to teach his Body how to put affronts upon his soul and
to give him the lie who dares tell him there are any hopes it may be saved He laughs at him that tells him there is any other Heaven then that of his own creating any other happinesse besides his pleasures or an Hell diverse from that which Christianity has objected to the Coward 's Phancy He has the Courage to be any thing but what he should be an Honest man or a Good Christian. §. 3. His Calling or Imploiment The Gallant 's Generall Calling and Emploiment is to scorne all businesse but the Study of the Modes and Vices of the times and herein he spares not to rack his brains and rob his soule as much of her Naturall as her Spirituall rest to supply the wanton world with variety of Inventions He takes an especiall care that nothing may ever appeare old about him but the Old Man of Sin and him he every day exposes to Publick view in a severall Dresse that if it be possible he may perswade the world to believe that all there is New too Indeed so miserably happy is he in Inventions of this sinfull Nature that any man who had not a Spirituall eye to discerne the same Proud and Luxurious Divell in all his Actions would almost think he had a new Nature as well as a New Suit for every day throughout the Yeare Thus he that thinks it so much below him to be reckonâ—d amongst the Labourers in God's House or Vineyard and disdaines to receive his Penny with those he should call his brethren either as a Reward or a Gratuity but seems rather to expect it as a Debt or Portion due by Inhaeritance Yet is he Content to sit all day long in Sathan's Shop one of his Slavish Prentices or Iourny-men who feeds him with course and Empty Husks here and will reward him with an Hellfull of torments for his labour hereafter He is all but a Proud and Glistering Masse of Swaggering Idlenesse and he makes it his chiefe Study to Demonstrate to the world how many severall wayes Idlenesse has found out to be busy He takes this for granted as well he may that he is not Idle but Dead that does just Nothing It is his task ever to be doing Nothing to a Good but much to a bad or no Purpose Though he may often seem to sit still and not to move so much as a little finger yet even then is his soule close at worke plotting and Contriving how he may for the time to come be most Pausibly Idle He acts so little for the Publick Good as if he were afraid he should be thought a Member of Mankind or as if the onely businesse God intended him were but to take care that he continue breathing He lives indeed as if he meant to prove that God Almighty had made him to no other End but this to show the world that he could make something whereof he had no need when made as if whilest he created other men for use and Service he intended him onely as Artists doe some of their neatâ—st but Slightest pieces of work to stand upon the stall or hang out for a signe at the Shop-windowes to show passengers with what the Shop is furnish'd within Or if you will you may looke upon him as upon the painted signe of a Man hung up in the Ayre onely to be toss'd to and fro with every wind of Temptation and Vanity Such a vain shadow or Picture is he that were there no more but himselfe I should take the boldnesse to Affirme there were no such Creature as a Man in the world To me he seems of no more worth then a Piece of Out-cast Iron lying uselesse upon the face of the Earth 'till his soule be even eaten away with Rust and Sleath God made him a Man but to prove himselfe his own God by a Second Creation he endeavours to make himselfe a Bruit nay a senselesse Carkasse that only Cumbers the Earth is fit for nothing but to dung the ground it lies upon and Stink in the Nostrils of the most High If ever he Sweat it is in pursuit of a feather at his play and sport in running away from his Worke and in the chase after his Ease And yet even in that he can never rest this indeed being the Naturall fruit of Idlenesse that it makes the Sluggard weary not onely of whatsoever he doth but even of Idlenesse it selfe §. 4. His Education and Breeding So soone as his age is capable of Instruction and Discipline he is sent to School or rather by reason of too great an Indulgence in his fond Parents the School is brought home to him where if the foolish Mother do not more awe the School-master then he his Schollar the Rod and an empty purse together do for a while preserve him himselfe But it shall not be long ere he find roome enough abroad in the world wherein he may lose himselfe again Yet truely it is a great rarity in this age to see the earliest Morning of Youth unclouded by the fumes and vapours of lust It being too usuall a thing with the debauch'd father to make his child as we use to say over early his Father 's own Sonne Most Gentlemen seem to make it a speciall piece of their fatherly care to stave off their Children as long as they can from Virtue and Religion lest therein resembling better men then their Fathers some might take occasion to think them Spurious To infuse so early into the Young Child the graver Notions of God and Goodnesse were to make him Old before his time and these would look no better then so many wrinkles and furrowes in the fresh cheeks of an infant alas what were this but an unspiriting of the Child and laying an unseasonable Damp upon the comely sprightfulnesse of youth 'T is fit he should be mann'd up by bold and daring exercises and as men use their Hounds be blooded now when he is young Divinity Morality are supposed to much to mollifie and emasculate the brave soule of a Young Gentleman and make it of too soft and facile a temper for Noble and Generous actions To instruct him how hereafter he should manfully resist his Enemies he shall first be taught to fight against God and Goodnesse It is indeed most lamentable to consider how very few of those we call Gentlemen endeavour to make their Children either Honest men or Good Christians as if it were their onely businesse to beget them and when they are come into the world to teach them by their own example how they may most unprofitably spend the short leavings of their own Luxury Thus at their death leave they them doubly Miserable in bequeathing them first little to live upon and secondly many waies to spend it Indeed the greatest Charity and providence in such Prodigall Parents were either not to beget Children at all or to beget them meer beggars that so they might not give them with their estates so many unhappy
opportunities of becomeing altogether as bad as themselves But the Hopefull Youth must be a Gentleman and in all hast he must be sent to see the Vniversity or Innes of Court and that before he well knowes what it is to goe to School Whither he comes not to get Learning or Religion but for breeding that is to enable himselfe hereafter to talke of the Customes and Fashions of the Place Here he gets him a Tutor and keeps him as he doth all things else for Fashion's sake Such an one who may serve at least as poore Boyes doe in some Princes Courts to sustain the blame of the Young Gentleman's Miscarriages and whom the father may chide and beat when the Son is found in a fault Indeed this care is taken for the good Tutor that if his Schollar chance to returne home as too seldome he does with either Schollarship or Piety he shall then have the Credit or Discredit call it which you will of making the Schollar or spoiling the Gentleman seeing his parents had taken order he should bring neither of the two along with him Here perhaps he is permitted to continue a yeare or two if he have no mother upon whom he must bestow at least three parts of that time in visits else his Father knows not well where he may with more Credit loose so much good time or is it may be afraid it will be a greater trouble to keep him at Home In this time he will in all probability have learn'd how to make choise of his boon Companions how to raile at the Statutes and break all good Orders How to weare a Gaudy Suite and a Torne Gowne To curse his Tutor by the name of Baal's Priest and to sell more books in halfe an Houre then he had bought him in a yeare To forget the second yeare what perhaps for want of acquaintance with the Vices of the place he was forced for a Passe-time to learne in the first and then he thinks he has learning enough for him and his heirs for ever And now that he may be able to maintain his title to so wretched an estate it is time he should be hasten'd away to some Inne of Court there to study the Law as he did the Liberall Arts and Sciences in the Colledg Here his pretence is to study and follow the Law but it 's his Resolution never to know or obey it If in any measure he do apply himselfe to it it is to this one end that he may know how to plead for himselfe when he breaks it or to attain at last to so much more Law then Honesty as to Cozen him that has more Honesty then Law Here indeed he learnes to be in his Notion of the Man somewhat more a Gentleman then before having now the Mock-happinesse of a Licentious life and a Manumission from the Tyranny as he termes it of a School-master and Tutor This he reckons the happy year of his Enfranchisement and in Commemoration whereof his whole life-time is to be one continued day of rejoycing From this time forward he resolves to be a Gentleman indeed and now begins to cleare himselfe from all Suspicion of Goodnesse which Constraint and Feare made some believe there was a Possibility of before §. 5. His Habit and Garbe As his Condition of life seems now to be New so does he endeavour that all should appeare New about him except his vices and his Religion He is too much in love with those to change them and the latter he cannot change because he never had any Pride and Wantonnesse have a very rare and ready invention here 's a New Garbe New Cloathes and a New body too O could he but once get him a New Soule or no Soule he might be thought happy When you look upon his Apparell you will be apt to say he wears his Heaven upon his back and truely 't is too much to be fear'd there you see as much of it as he ever shall He is so trick'd up in Gauderies as if he had resolved to make his Body a Lure for the Divell and with this Bravery would make a bate should tempt the Tempter to fall in love with him He looks as if he had prevented our first Mother in sinning and wanting patience to stay for the fruit had pluck'd the very blossomes and now wore them about him for Ornaments His Suite seems to be made of Lace or Ribbon trimm'd with Cloath By his variety of Fashions he goes nigh to cheat his Creditors who for this reason dare never sweare him to be the same man they formerly had to deale withall His Mercer may very well be afraid to loose him in a Labyrinth of his own cloath which yet sits or hangs shall I say for the most part so loosely about him as if it were ever ready to fly away for feare of the Serjeant Alas how often is he proud of a Feather in his hat which a silly Bird was but a while agoe weary of carrying in her tayle Doe but take him in that condition wherein you may commonly be sure to find him he will make a compleat walking Tavern His head and Feather will serve both for signe and Bush. If you observe but a little his strange Garbe and Behaviour either that wherein he walks the streets or that other more set and affected one reserved for his forme of Complement You would conclude he were going to show Tricks I am sure he wants nothing but a stage erected for the purpose He takes as much care and pains to new-mold his Body at the Dancing-School as if the onely shame he fear'd were the retaining of that Forme which God and Nature gave him Sometimes he walks as if he went in a Frame again as if both head and every member of him turned upon Hinges Every step he takes presents you with a perfect Puppit-play And Rome it selfe could not in an Age have shown you more Antiques then one of our Gentlemen is able to imitate in Halfe an houre whose whole life is indeed no other then one studied imitation of all the vanities Imaginable and by his daily practice a man would guesse there could be no such ready way invented of becoming a Gentleman as to degenerate first into that Beast which now if ever is most like a man an Ape Such an Honourable creature has he made himselfe who accounts it below him to be number'd among the ordinary sort of men §. 6. His Language and Discourse His Language and Discourse are altogether suitable to his Habit and Garbe All affected and Apish but indeed for the most part much more vile sinfull and Abominable When it is most Innocent then is it Idle and Light and then most quaint and Rhetoricall when Drolling or prophane Although he make it his whole businesse whensoever he dares be Bookish which indeed he dreads as much as any thing but to be Good to furnish himselfe with an Elegant and Courtlike expression yet will
all but amount to this at most that sometimes he may be able to talke well and show us how much he is a better Speaker then a man That he shall be able to carve out his Language into some of the most Modish and Dissembling Complements and to Interlard an affected discourse with many an Impertinent Parenthesis And then amidst all this his Time-observing hand and foot do so point accent and Adorne all with Curious and Phantastick flourishes that his words are often as much lost in his Actions as his sense in his words A piece of noisy Bombast denominates him one of the great Wits where the Substance of his discourse if it have any is dress'd up in so rude and Antique a forme that staring as it were the hearer in his face it goes nigh to scare him out of his Wits If Don Quixot or some Romance more in Fashion can but furnish him with a few New-Coyn'd words and an Idle tale or two to make up his talke at the next Ordinary In his own fond Conceit and by the votes of his simple Companions he is carried up to Heaven a wanton piece of Drollery will send him beyond it To be truly Ingenious is not the way to Humour his Frollick Companions and therefore he is put to study out something else which must serve for a while instead of wit and 't is strange he can think of nothing will doe this so well as flat foâ—lery for most perfectly such is that Drâ—lling veine wherein he is so frequently industrious to show himselfe a witty foole What a learned age is this we live in when he is the best Companion for a Gentleman who can best act the Rustick and most facilely Imitate the rudenesse and Flatnesse of his language and when he alone must be esteem'd the Wit who can neatliest play the fool to Humour Mad-men To be sober or serious in the Gentleman's Dictionary signifies just as much as to be Dull and Blâ—ckish A Phancy which dares not roave about beyond the limits of Sobriâ—ty and Discretion nor proclaime her selfe to be most affectedly prophane or as industriously vaine and Idle is a Bird that has no note sweet enough for his Cage T is a wonderfull thing to see how the Apish Ingenuity of this Age has cut the very throat of all sober Invention and Genuine wit A Mimicall tone a Phantastick action a Couchant sense and a Phrase Rampant quarter the Coat of our Modern Gentile Wit Such are the Spungy Eares of most Companions that they will suck in nothing but froth And the Gentleman looks upon him as a poore solitary foole who will not thus make himselfe on Asse for Company But alas all these are but he Innocent recreations of his Tongue wherein it sports it selfe in it's Infancy e're it attaine to that nimblenesse and volubility of expression which becomes a Gentleman Hee is not alwayes delighted in these soft walkes but as he grows more a man hee chooses him rougher paths and more manly exercises By degrees hee steps up from Idlenesse and Emptinesse foolery Drollery to Scurrility â—bloquy when at every step he tramples some Good Man's Honour in the Dust at each word he spits in the face of his Betters and labours to bespatter with the Dirt of Infamy and Disgrace every name and reputation that stands above his owne And you may be sure he will ever throw the blackest dirt upon the fairest face where it may certainly do the greatest mischiefe and be most conspicuous Like an experienced Archer he never misses the white but as good luck is such is the Impenitrability of Innocence when darted at by the poyson'd arrowes of Envy he never holes it If this black breath of his could blow out or eclipse those lights that shine brightest wee should not have one starre left in vertue 's Heaven And those lights which were sent into the world to guide him timely and truly out of it into a better he first endeavours to extinguish that so he may without check or shame wander through all the workes of darknesse into Hell What so often in his mouth as that which he never names but with the deepest accent of scorne and disdain a Paltry Parson And he does not stick often to tel him to his face that when he comes to have as much wit as zeall he will begin to tell him another tale then that of Heaven that he may doe well to keep him to his tub and tell a precise story once or twice a week to his Ignorant Auditors in his Countrey-Church and forbear to read lectures of Godlinesse to persons whom he should be afraid to looke upon but at a Distance That he brought more learning from school with him then all the Canonicall Cassocks and Girdles in the Nation with all their tough Logicall Notions and knotty Metaphysicks shall be ever able to Contain With a thousand more such like raveings of a wild and Atheisticall brain I shall willingly forbeare to personate him any farther in them lest he might think me able as I hope I shall never bee to reach the Frantick strain of his loose and prophaine Railleryes Neither are his Discourses less Beastly then Devillish less Filthy then Malicious So foul obseane and nauseous for the most part are his words that some one or other as little acquainted with a God as himsefe will be apt to conclude that nature spoyl'd him in the making and set his Mouth at the wrong end of his Body Certainly there must be a Corrupted and putrified Soul within whence there dayly steames out so much odious and stinking breath Indeed so strangely is the Gentleman's Palate distemper'd by this same loathsome Disease that he can now rellish just nothing but the very Excrements of Discourse He is not onely taken with the wanten language and Lascivious Dialect of Love wherein to accomplish himselfe he makes it too much his buesyness to collect what he can out of all the loose pastâ—ralls Beastly Poems and Baudy pieces of Drollery which by their number seem to turne our Booksellers shops into so many Iakes But he takes a great deal of pleasure to lick with his tongue the Nauseous Botches and Putrified sores and the Infectious Leprosies of wit O how does he delight to dwell upon the sore place of an obscene Poem and he neuer Commends the Poet for any thing but his Infirmityes He is no Company for the Gallant of late who will not once at least before the close of every Period Commit Lip-Adultery As there is not any more filthy vice of the tongue then this so neither do I ever find the Gentleman more in Love with any other Except it be that one which I am now to name And that is it which indeed I tremble to mention though he esteems it the greatest Grace and Ornament of his Discourse I mean Swearing For as the Gentleman seems Continually to measure out his time by sins insteed of Minutes so
and justle the other quite out of their Bibles advancing the wisedome of the serpent to so high and Intense a degree that it cannot admit the least proportion of the Holy Doves more necessary Innocence Such a foraminous piece of Net-worke has Christian Prudence been made of late that these Glib serpentine Politicians can soe wind themselves in and out at pleasure as if they meant neither God nor Man should ever know certainly where to have them It is a very famous piece of the Gentleman's prudence to Endeavour to Out-wit an All-wise God and to go about to put Fallacies upon him out of his owne word often makeing even God's most righteous precepts the Topicks of his disobedience How frequently endeavours he to cloak the violation of one law by a pretended obedience to another and by setting God's Commands at variance one with another thinks to steal away his beloved sin and not be taken notice of He dares not take up his Crosse and follow Christ lest he should become Felo de se accessary to his owne death Nor knows he how to forsake Father and Mother for Christ's sake without a breach of the Fifth Commandment which binding him to Honour both he cannot see how he may in any sence forsake either He dares not part with houses and lands for fear he might seem to Dispise God's good Blessings nor hazard his estate in the vindication of his Religion and his Loyalty lest he should be said to have thereby thrown away the opportunities of expressing his bounty and his Charity He knows how much he is obliged not to deny Christ before men and to give an account of his faith to such as demand it of him but then he produces a text which tells him of daies wherein the Prudent shall keep silence and these daies he supposes still present whensoever his person or estate may be endanger'd by an open heart or an Ingenuous tongue He will be ready to suffer Persecution for the Gospell of Christ and with St Paul to be bound and to dye but this must onely bee when his Prudence is at a losse and he can find out no way just or unjust to avoyd all this As long as there are shifts enow left him such as dissembling language Covert Engagements Cunning flatteries treacherous Compositions petty Contributions Vnderhand Compliances in things both Civill and Religious he thinks he wants no honest Evasions to secure both Life and livelyhood Thus he is Content to set him down in quietnesse whilest the Enemies of God's Church advance in troops and Armies against her and thinks it enough when he can say he wishes all well and praies for the Peace of Ierusalem It were no Prudence openly to declare his opinion or to act on any side alas he is but one single man and one's as good as none against the stream of the multitude not Considering that where one does not joyne with one there can be no multitude There are other Champions enow in the world to vindicate her quarrell such as have no estates to look after No families to provide for when if all were of his mind there would not be so much as one and besides who has greater reason to labour then he that has already received so great a share of his wages What though he freely gives away a large portion of his goods to the Enemies of God It is but the way to secure the rest for better purposes What though he be constrain'd with faire speeches to flatter up the transgressors in their Iniquities His heart for all this shall be for God his prayers for the Church and he is as Good a Christian and as Loyall a Subject within as the best Alas 't is no great matter to Comply a little in outward things to lay an hand upon a Bible to invoke the sacred Name of God and seemingly to Renounce Religion and Loyalty God knows he intends no such matter but onely takes this Course to keep his Family from ruine and to preserve himselfe safe and whole to doe God and his Church more service heareafter It is all one with him to goe to Church or Câ—nventicle so he may by frequenting either be thought to favour the Religion in Fashion and so not be suspected an Enemy to the God that rules the man in power with a sword in his hand He can take a great deal of pains rise early and go farre to encourage a seditious Lecture and when Sermon 's done with an Hypocriticall face smile upon the preacher and inviteing him home with him witness his thankes and approbation in a Good dinner But he holds it imprudence to frequent that true worship and service of God which the excellency thereof and the Command of his superiours commends to his Conscience lest he should be thereby thought ill-affected to that Religion which he would have Good men believe his soul abhorres He dares Countenance Rebellion and Sacriledge both with his tongue and Purse but aesteems it dangerous and therefore without all doubt Imprudence to Contribute so much as a Good look to the Encouragement of the truly Religious and vertuous lest he should be suspected by the prosperous sinner an Enemy to Treason and Wickednesse Till we can find a way how to cast out this Prudent Devill which as the Prophet tells us is wise to doe evill but to doe Good has no understanding we shall ever heare this possess'd Gentleman crying out with the Daemoniack in the Gospell what have we to doe with thee Iesus thou son of God Why art thou Come to torment us before our time Such a perfect Gout is this prudent Cowardise that the lame Gentleman ever cries out at the very sight of any thing looks like Religion as if it would come too neer him and touch him upon the sore place So sad a thing is it to stand in feare of health lest it should make us sick to tremble at the sight of what would bring us to Heaven lest we should lose our Earth and to take so much anxious care to praeserve the Body whole for fear a Courteous wound should set open the dore and give the soul leave to fly out into Heaven and be at rest If such men be truely prudent then are all true Christians undoutedly fools Or if this over-warynesse be no more but a prudent and Religious Caution then are most of our English Gentlemen which I have not yet Charity enough to beleeve Prudent Christians But alas Neutrality hangs too much betwixt two ever to come so high as Heaven and a Cold Indifferency comes so farre short of that necessary zeal which is the unfailing Consequent of true Piety that it is impossible it should ever be Crown'd with aeternall Happinesse He that is not deeply in love with his God cannot place his absolute felicity in the fruition of God and he that is afraid to do any thing or think 's it prudence to suffer nothing for him is not in Love
earth and to think them all so blind that they cannot discerne his vanity This indeed it is that makes him think neither Church nor State worth his reguarding he can with Dry eyes behold both vessels split at once and in the mean time flatter himselfe up with the Divellish hopes of Enriching his Ambition by the miserable wrack This is he that can think it no Injustice to rob the whole world and rifle the store-house of Nature to adorne his Body and humour his Palate to weare the portions and livelihoods of I know not how many Orphans and Widdowes in a Bandstring and carry the lives and Fortunes of many languishing Souls upon his Little-finger I wish that whilest he casts â—o scornefull an eye upon these poore naked Beggars he would but seriously consider how many of their Contemptible rags he hath pick'd up together to patch up all that bravery upon his own back whilst either his oppression occasion'd or his uncharitablenesse prolong'd their lamentable condition He makes indeed almost the whole creation Club to maintane his Ambition and returnes a derision in requitall This Gentleman 's chiefe pastime and sport whereby he makes himselfe merry is to laugh at two sorts of men The Godly and the Poâ—r the one as a Praecisian and he that has unmann'd himselfe by too much Religion the other as the out-cast of Fortune or a man intended by Nature for nothing else but by his labour to make him rich and by his Ignorance to make him merry The Black-coate or Parson for by these names he thinks he does sufficiently pay the Divine and Schollar he ever looks upon with as much Superciliousnesse and disdain as if the very Colour of his Coat were odious and an Eye-sore to him or as if because shame and feare keep him from Immediate and Direct Blasphemy He were resolved to expresse his splene against God himselfe by despighting his servants He is seldome or never his Auditor but when he has a mind to sleep or is disposed to be merry and then he comes to Church and there worships God just as he honours his Ministers out of it Nay he is unwilling to allow his God that ordinary Civillity which and much more he expects from his own Chaplain that of a Cap and a knee Or if his Breeding have taught him more manners then his Piety has Reverence then shall all his Religion be pent up into this one poor Ceremony and so he makes his Worship all one with his Complement This is he whose intollerable Pride makes every thing that is not the very basest kind of Flattery passe for an Affront and an high piece of Disrespect unto his Person For this immediatly he studies a revenge which he has learn'd to call a necessary vindication of his Honour What an excellent Chimistry is there in such deluded Nobility which can extract a Spirit of Honour out of the very Dunghill of Vnworthynesse and find so admirable a sweetnesse in that which cannot be thought better then the very Ordure and Excrement of Ambition Malice and Envy I mean Reâ—enge Let but the least Circumstance of that Respect he supposes due be omitted and presently there flies out a Challenge and for the most part so vauntingly worded as if he meant his breath or his Ink should doe more execution then his sword By this meanes he makes his first thrust at his adversaries very heart that so he may wound his courage before they meet and cause his heart to faile him before the Encounter for this indeed is often the onely way his late repented temerity uses to leave him for the securing of his Reputation But is so be his courage stand upon the same levell with his Ambition 't is nothing but the death or disgrace of his Antagonist will asswage his Furyâ— in the Field therefore he often sends his Body to the Grave and his owne Soule to Hell at a Blow This is his Gallantry and this the necessary vindication of that Honour which is so tender that every thing except it have in it the unworthy softnesse of the most servile compliance with his owne unconstant Humour rends spâ—ts or grieves it and which nothing can wash clean or make whole again but the Heart-blood of him who durst give the Affront I hope he will not take it as such if I make bold here to take my leave of him I have neither leisure nor patience to trace him through the wild Labyrinth of his Pride wherein he has long agoe with no small complacency lost himselfe and all things which looke like vertue I wish all men whom he studies to provoke into an madnesseequall with his owne may ever have that high charity for this Gentleman which I have now then should they answer all his challenges with this prayer That God would give him more courage then to suffer himselfe to be thus basely Affronted and domineer'd over by so dangerously insulting a Passion without the least Essay towards the just vindication of that Name and Honour which alone are Valuable §. 7. The conclusion of this part I should as much tyre you Sir as my selfe should I run though with never so much haste over all the particulars of the Gentleman's vanity and madnesse which are so inseparably for the most part interwovâ—n one within another that I feare I may already seeme too absurd by dividing them into so many Sects or Species The plaine truth is Vice seemes to be that very blood which Gentility so much boasts of that which conveyes it selfe through all the Gentlemans veines and is dispersed into all the severall members of the body in a measure suitable to the capacity of each Or rather you may call it the common-soule which informes and actuates the whole body of Gallantry and which is Communicated to the particular members thereof not by an extention or Distribution of parts and degrees but to borrow once more the Philosophâ—r's Phrase it is wholly in the whole and wholy in every part of the whole If the great variety and diversity of operations will yet needs plead for a further Distinction we must say what we use to say of the various actings of the same soule This Diversity ariseth not from a Multiplicity of Soulâ—s or Principals but from the many powers and faculties of that one soule and the various dispositions and qualities of the Materiall Organs Really Sir the Gentleman we have hitherto spoken of is but the more curious and costly instrument of Sin and would appeare such a breathlesse thing without it that a man might well question whether or no he would be found an animated beeing For ought that I can yet discover he has no more motion then what vice gives him excepting that which he expresses when he is asleepe which setting aside his excess therein is almost the onely thing wherein hee lookes like a man To give you therefore the Conclusion of this whole character call him any thing but what hee would be
patterne for Mankind to Imitate And to let us see how much of Heaven if we will receive it may dwell upon Earth He is so refined from all Mixture of our Courser Elements as if he were absolutely Spiritualized before his time If ever he were proud of any thing it was of being the Conqueror of that and all other Vices He scornes and is ashamed of nothing but Sin He lives in the world as one that intends to shame the world out of love with it selfe and he is therefore Singular in all his Actions not because he affects to be so but because he cannot meet with Company like himselfe to make him otherwise In a word he is such that could we want him it were pitty but that he were in Heaven and yet I pitty not much his Continuance here because he is already so much an Heaven to himselfe §. 3. His Chiefe Honour and Dignity His first Honour in this world is to be borne the most noble of God's creatures here below His next is to live one of his most Obedient and laborious servants like those above His greatest to Die his beloved Son that so he may reign with him for ever It was the Honour of his Infancy onely to have Noble Parents It is the Honour of his riper yeares that he can Imitate their Vertues and it will be the Crown of his Old-Age to be as good a father as his own Blood and Birth then stood him instead when his tender years had not yet render'd him Capable of vertue and Worth When he comes to Age He Enters upon his Honour not as upon his estate by the will or title of his Ancestors but by the claime of his merits looking upon it not as his lot or Inheritance but as his choise and purchase He has an Especiall care that his Honour and his Person may both live and Grow up but never die together He accounts it much below a person of his Quality to owe all that Respect which is given him when he is a man to his full Coffers or all the Reverence which is paid him when an Old-man to his Gray-haires But he so provides for his Honour that whatever Respect is offered him may be esteemed a Debt and not a Present and that his future Goodnesse may not be thought the Product of the Old but rather an Obligation to New respects Such he Civilly accepts when paid him but seldome challenges when delay'd or withheld so farre I mean as they Concerne his person not his Office For though it be one Honour to deserve yet is it another Contentedly to want them He needs never goe abroad to seek himselfe and therefore he hearkens with more safety to his own Conscience then the people's Acclamations and he had much rather know himselfe Honourable then be told that he is soe His highest Ambition is to be a Favourite in the Court of Heaven and to this end his Policy is to become not a Great but a New Man and to dresse up himselfe in all those Spirituall Ornaments which may make his Soule truly amiable in the eyes of the Great King He considers how that he owes himselfe unto God as he is his Creature and he endeavours to discharge that Old debt by a most earnest and importunate suite for New favours ever praying that God would make him fit to serve him by making him first a New-Creature He Could never yet think the Old-Man fit to make a Courtier of Heaven and therefore he uses to walke in his white-Robe and his Wedding-Garment that so he may be admitted into the King's Praesence He furnisheth himselfe betimes with such Apparell as this and he fits and settles it to his soule before-hand knowing that the longer it is worne the more Splendid it Growes and the more it is used the longer it will last the onely way to wear it out is not to wear it at all but having once attired himselfe in this Habit now Every day is with him an Holy-day and he is henceforward every where at Court But that which he esteems his great Honour indeed is this that he can with Confidence and truly call God his father His Saviour his friend and his brother the Church his Mother and the Angels his fellow servants Such Parents such kinred and such Company he may safely boast of but this he does no other way then by his Obedience and Gratitude He behaves himselfe as a King's son ought to doe that is he does nothing misbecoming his birth and Dignity §. 4. His Out-side and Apparell If we may spare so much time from the Contemplation of those richer Excellencies of his inner man as to take notice of his Outside we may there behold the Ingenious Embleme of his better selfe so much Good care he takes that there be nothing found about him but what may speak him indeed a Gentleman and present you so farre as the Matter will bear it with the faire picture of a Noble Mind He would gladly so polish and adorne his body as becomes the lodging of so great a Soul He looks upon it as a thing onely so farre deserving his care and paines as it is a necessary Instrument of her Operations and yet he rather could wish himselfe might it so be freed from the Cumbersome Company of his Flesh because it proves often so great a Clog and hinderance to the more Active and vigorous inclinations of his better part So long as he is Confined to his Tabernacle of clay he makes the best that can be made of a Necessary Evill so feeding his body that it may have strength enough to serve his Soule and so cloathing it that the other part may be kept from freezing and fit for more sprightly actings Indeed he never makes much of his Earthly part but in subserviency to his Spirituall that so he may the better as he is Commanded Glorify God both with body and Soul which are his Hence is it that you may alwaies observe in his Habit such a Gravity as beseems a Christian and yet such a Decency as becomes a Gentleman He chuses rather to have his distinction from other Men founded in his vertues then in his Cloaths Herein he showes that he looks more after what 's serviceable and usefull then what 's pleasing and Fashionable So much Curiosity he has as not to be Slovenly and so little as it cannot show that he is vaine or wanton He had rather have his Apparell Rich then Gaudy and yet rather warme then Rich. It is neatnesse not bravery a Decent not a Gorgeous attire which next unto what 's usefull he aimes at In every suite he buyes he hath as great a regard to the poore man's necessities as to his own humour and makes choise of that Cloath or Stuffe which may please God hereafter upon the Beggar 's back more then what he knowes may now flatter the wanton eye of the World upon his own He has much better thoughts of
Vertue then to hope his fine Cloaths may gaine him a respect where that could not nay on the other side he knowes that Goodnesse is enough of it selfe to advance the Ragge above the Robe and a Leatherne Cap above the Golden Diademe He Pitties the unskilfull wantonnesse of the world which allwaies as Children and Fools use to doe sets an higher value upon the Varnish and the gilded Frame then on the lively features and excellent Art in the rich Piece they adorne and he calls it a blindnesse at least a weak sight which cannot behold a vertue but as we do a dull picture through the Glistering Glasse of Vanity He esteems his penny in the Poor man's purse a much greater Ornament then a faire Plume in his own Hat Neither knowes he how he may with a Good Conscience weare that which might be made many a poore man's livelihood as too many now love to doe in a Band and a paire of Cuffes He is more pleas'd to see his own Cloaths cover another's Nakednesse then displaying his lusts and thinks it more honourable to weare the Charity then the Bravery If his Place or Office challenge an Habit above his desires by what he is forced to doe he showes what he would chuse to doe and most lively expresses his singular humility in his necessitated Gallantry showing how he can Condescend even to any thing so it be Innocent though by a Conformity contrary to his naturall Inclinations And even herein he takes care to Provide himselfe such Apparell that his cast suite as we call it may not be quite cast away and to this end he chuses rather to swaggar it in Gold then Tinsell in Cloath then Stuffe that so it may be sullied before it be torne and unfit for him to weare before it be worne out and then most becoming the Poverty and mean Condition of another when it shall be below the State and Dignity of his Place and Person It is most certaine and the Gentleman knowes it as well that the Temper and Disposition of the Soule is no way better Discernable then through the Habit and Garbe of the Body He that longs after New fashions will not be backwards in embracing New Religions both proceeding from one and the same dangerous Principle an unconstancy of mind and a Desire of Novelty The True Gentleman knowes it by experience that where there is no levity in the thoughts there appears no alteration in the Body where no inconstancy and Pride of Soule there 's no change or flaunting in the cloaths And therefore that the world may know that he has a fixed and resolved soule he has one Constant Garbe and Attire and he will never yield that to be out of Fashion which is both Serviceable and Frugall Alas the poore Body he knowes Desires nothing but what may preserve it alive and in health It is the lascivious Soule which calls for all those other Superfluities and the Gentleman accounts it below him to gratifie his lusts and to be at so vast an expence to cloath his Humour He could never since he was a child play with a Feather or think himselfe happy in the Glistering of a Lace or Ribband He leaves these toyes to those silly Creatures who are resolved to Continue for ever in their Childhood or Infancy and dare be so foolish as to think a bread band and a slaunting Cuffe as necessary as Heaven He can think himselfe a man without such a vanity and know himselfe a Gentleman without any such Mark or bravery alwaies wearing such Cloaths as his Body may in Old-age have good reason to blesse the moderation of his soule and the Needy may have no lesse cause to pray for the health of of his body §. 5. His Discourse and Language When you heare him speak you will think that he intends no lesse then to give you a tast of his Soul at every word Nor indeed is it possible you should in any thing plainlier Discover the Noblenesse of his Spirit then in his sweet breath so Divinely moulded into most excellent discourse Every word he speaks speaks him and gives you a saire Character at once both of his Abilities and his Breeding If you respect the Quality of his Discourse it is Grave and Noble Serious and Weighty and yet alwaies rather what is fit to be spoken then what he is able to speak His Words are most Proper and Genuine but not affected His Phrase high and lofty but not Bombastick His Sentenses close and full but not obscure or Confused His Discourse is neither Flashy nor Flat neither Boyish nor Effaeminate neither rude nor Pedantick It is alwaies Sober yet Ingenious Virile strong and Masculine yet sweet and Winning He loves a Smooth expression but not a Soft one a Smart or Witty saying but without a Clinch or Iingle His words are those which his Matter will best beare not such as his Phaney would readily est suggest No poor halfe starved Iests no drie Insipid Quibbles can get any room in his Rhetorick hardly a word in all but what hath it's Emphasis nor any sentence without it's full weight If you would eye the Quantity of his Speech it is not Long but Full not Much but Great He speaks not alwaies but when he speaks he saies All. He as often showes how well he can be silent as how well he can speak and others alwaies love more to hear him talke then he himselfe He makes no lesse use of his Eare in all Companies then of his Tongue and by his serious harkening to the more impertinent discourses of his Companions plainly proves he has no lesse Patience then Rhetorick He makes it evident that he has his tongue that unruly Beast in most men's Mouthes as much at his Command as his Wit and that he is able to make both rest as well as both move at his pleasure His sayings are never long or taedious but they alwaies reach Home and he will very seldome take any thing lesse then a Necessity for an Opportunity of speaking But then usually he delivers all with that facility and perspicuity as if his words were not the elect and voluntary but the ready and Naturall emanations of his Soul No Passion shall at any time more Disturbe the Order of his words then it can Cloud the Serenity of his forehead He cannot make himselfe merry much lesse proud with his own Inventions nor does he ever catch at the applause but aimes at the Edification of his Auditers If you will look upon the Matter and Substance of his Discourse you shall see 't is alwaies what he finds not what he makes Not what he supposes may afford the fairest field for his Phancy and Invention to roave in but the Best-Garden of such choise fruits as the Stomacks Not the Palates onely of his Company shall be best able to beare Or such as may prove most Medicinall when seasonably applied to the severall Diseases of those that heare him
a thing most unworthy in a Gentleman to be an Il husband especially where the treasure is God's and he but his Steward yet such a steward as has the use as it were of his Lord's purse for his Incouragement His acquired Intellectuall accomplishments are too numerous and various to be here characterized something must be said of them hereafter in his study though but very little for I chuse rather to insist upon what Denominates him Good and Noble then Great and knowing for though the latter be usefull and excellent yet the former are more praise worthy and Necessary §. 8. His Command over himselfe His Will and Affections he makes the Instruments and servants not the Guides and Mistresses of his Soul He subjugates His Will unto Reason and this to Religion and and by this means it comes to passe that he never misses of having his own free Choice in all things He both Doth and Hath what he will because he never wills but what is according to reason nor thinks any thing Reasonable but what 's honest and Lawfull thus by making God's will his own he is never Crost in his desires Thus he exercises the first and main act of his Authority at home and that he may be more expert in Governing others he first practises upon himselfe and learns to command his Inferiour Soul He will not submit in the least to the Tyranny of a Passion nor hearkens he further to the most tempting Suggestions of his Sensitive part then he sees that subject to the grave and sober dictates of its lawfull Emperesse Right Reason His Affections when prepared and fitted by an unprejudiced Iudgment for his service he delaies not to put into exercise but imployes them as so many wings whereon his soul may be Carried up above the reach of Vulgar men It would be too great an Indulgence in him to suffer his Passions to be their own carvers and chusers of their own objects for these beeing the Naturall Daughters of his untamed sensitive Appetite have too much of their mother in them to be discreet in their choise like wanton and imprudent Girles they would pitch upon the fairest rather then the best and more labour to flatter the Sense then obey the Reason As their Lord and Soveraine therefore he appoints and Reason Cuts them out their work and assignes every one it 's proper taske and by this means at length they become the Beauty ornament and strength which otherwise had naturally been the Blemishes Disorders and Infirmities of the Man He desires in all things to be above the world that 's his Ambition and therefore he sets his Affections on things above and points them out the way to Heaven that 's his prudence The soule without them would be lame and unable to goe and they without it's eye of Reason are blind and know not which way to goe but as the Cripple upon the blind man's back let but the judgment direct them in the right path and then they will carry the soul to Heaven The Gentleman is too much a Man to be without all Passion but he is not so much a Beast as to be governed by it In this Moderation and Empire over himselfe where he gives Law to his Affections and limits the extravagances of Appetite and the insatiable cravings of sensuallity the just rule he goes by is not Opinion but knowledg not that leaden one which is so easily bent and made Crooked or melted and dissolved by the heat of Passion or the arts of Sophistry into error and Skepticisme but that other Golden one which lies as close and firme as 't is made straight and even When he would imprint the true lovelinesse of any Object upon his affections he takes it into a true light and has a care to remove from before his eye all those Cunningly wrought Glasses or other instruments of Sathan and Lust set so frequently to prejudice and deceive the sight whatsoever might cause him to mistake a false object for a true or to see a true one amisse so endeavours he to be as free from error as from vice esteeming it as a sin to act against his knowledg so a shame at least to be deceived in his Opinion He judges of things as he does of men not by what they promise but by what they prove and so he trusts and Loves and feares them not for what in appearance they seem to be but for what in the use and triall of them he finds that in truth they are He accounts not an Oxe therefore more terrible then a Lion because he is greater nor a Pebble more desirable then a Pearl because 't is heavier But he first collects the Excellency of every thing from it's usefulnesse and tendency unto that end he aimes at in the pursuit after or use of it and then he proportions his affections according to that degree of Excellency he has thus rationally concluded to be in it After this manner does he in the first place Lord it over his Passion 'till in a long obedience she have served out her apprenticeship to his Reason then is she deservedly enfranchised into a vertue and so becomes at length her Lord's Mistresse and 't is she will get him a reward for his service in Heaven §. 9. His Magnanimity and Humility There is a Brave Heroick Vertue which is as a second soul unto the true Gentleman and Enspirits every part of him with an admirable Gallantry I mean Christian Magnanimity and Greatnesse of Soul This presently heaves him up to that size that the wide world seems too strait and narrow to contain him or afford room enough for him to expresse the activity of his Spirit This is it which teaches him to laugh at small things and disdain to goe lesse then his Name Being carried up on high upon the wings of this Vertue he casts down his eye upon those little Happinesses which seem enough to satisfie the Narrow Souls of other men with no little Contempt and Scorne but on those poor starvelings themselves whose Earthly Appetites can make such trash their Diet with as much Pitty and Compassion It is this Vertue which so ennobles all his actions that they beare a just proportion to the largenesse of his thoughts and permits him to engage in nothing which is not truly Honourable And it is this same Vertue which makes his own Bosome his Treasury and that so rich and selfe sufficient that all the externall felicities this world has or can cast in to the Bargain are look'd upon by him with as slender a reguard as the Widowes Mite would have been by the great Lord of the Temple without a large Augmentation from her Piety and Devotion It is this Virtue which makes him a Calme in his own brest when the whole world besides rages like a troubled Sea round about him Let the storme and tempest threaten never so loudly a splitting and a wrack to other unballanced souls he
knowes not how to fear whilest his Courage is his Anchor and Innocence his safe Harbour This is it which makes him conclude their Labour very ill spent who for the cherishing of a Childdish humour use to sweat and Consume their strength and Spirits in pursuit of a Fethâ—r or strain their backs to take up every straw that Glisters in their way It ought to be a much Nobler Game then such a silly fly that this Eagle vouchsafes to Stoop to But as this brave Virtue thus teacheth the Gentleman to he enough to himselfe and rest Content and Satisfied with what he hath at home so does it likewise teach him to be too much for himselfe and Commands him not to vindicate all of himselfe wholy to his own use and service It were pitty so great a Goodnesse should be thus Confined within one subject as not to be able to Distribute something of it selfe to every one of it's neighbours Nay this Christian Magnanimity doth so stretch out his Soul that even that too seems to be Communicated unto others besides himselfe It is a kind of violence and restraint to her to be pinned up within the narrow Province of one Individuall Body and therefore she studies how she may enlarge if nother Empire yet her Charity and make a number by being the Objects of her bounty the witnesses of her Greatnesse Indeed so Diffusive and spreading is Vertue when she growes in so rich a soyle that of a little she soon becomes great and of One a Multitude This grain of Mustardseed growes up so fast and so great that many may reap the benefit of it's grouth by partaking of it's branches And such a Cloud as at first might appear but of an hand breadth will suddenly make a Nation happy in that refreshing dew which by it's plenty will argue a strange increase after so small an appearance Indeed the Gentleman acts as if he intended that his soul should in a short time animate the Vniverse and make it more then ever the poor Philosopher could dream of One great Gentleman and the severall Individuals therein but the numerous members of his own body Though the indocile and untractable spirits of the Common sort of men be such as force him against his will to be singular yet to show us how unwilling he is to remain so his vertues are too charitable to be long alone and hence are all his Breathings such as might well be thought intended by him to inspire his Company with something like himselfe and all his Actions so many earnest Essayes towards the assimilating of their Natures unto his own He is Master of so inexhaustible and Miraculous a treasury of Goodnesse that he may very well afford every man a little and yet keep all unto himselfe He knowes not how to be good and not to doe good and therefore one halfe of his study is to give himselfe away Neither his brest nor his purse are ever shut to such as need him and God knowes more need him then will make use of him The Gentleman may well be Compared unto a Great Book which alwaies lies wide open to the world that whosoever wants advice or Counsell may freely Consult him at pleasure there they may read what himselfe as opportunity served him has taken great pains to Coppy out faire in all his Actions whatever is both safe great and Good thus in one and at once they may behold both the rules of a Good life Praecept and Example Nor doth this virtue more manifest it selfe in a liberall distribution and Instruction then in as free and Impartiall a Correction and reproofe whensoever it is requisite chusing much rather to crosse the humour of his friend then flatter his vice and to lose his friendship here then his Company if it may be possible for him to have it in Heaven another day He is not afraid to call every Man by his own name or adde the Epithete which is due unto it that so every one that comes into his presence may be afraid to bring a bad name along with him He can envy no man because he cannot see any one better then himselfe neither yet can he despise any man because he really desires every one might be as good as himselfe So that what 's most of all Commendable this most excellent vertue is accompanied with a most exemplary humility and there is nothing can more deservedly exalt him in the thoughts of all men then this that he is such a Diminutive in his own Nor does this proceed from an Ignorance of his own excellencies but rather hence that he knowes whence he had them Neither does he therefore praeferre every man in Honour before himselfe because he knowes not what other men are but because he knowes not what they may be He is really so high that he may with ease reach Heaven but he makes himselfe so low that he may go in at the strait gate When he looks upon his own vertues which he had rather show then see and have then show he will not think them great because he intends to make them yet much Greater neither can he tell how to applaud himselfe when he sees them great because he knowes well how little he either made or deserved them It is this vertue that makes him much more desire the friendship of a vertuous Beggar then the favour of a vicious and licentious Prince because this he must assuredly lose seeing he knowes not how in a Compliance to his humour to become wicked but that shall never end but last as long as his Heaven He chuses his Companions not by the outward habit of their Body but that internall of the Soul and sets an higher value on them for their Merits then their Births He is so little proud of what he is that he is indeed very humble for what he is not He will never be persuaded as most of those we call Gallants doe to pride himselfe in his Vanity Beast of his folly and Glory in his Prophanenesse §. 10. His Charity and Temperance The Gentleman's Charity is no other then his Soul draw'n out to his finger's ends Every piece of money he hath beares as well the Impression and Image of this Vertue as that of his Prince and this is it which makes him value the Coyne more and the Silver lâ—sse He is indeed that true Briaraeus which has as many hands as he meets with receivers and for this cause he is look'd upon as a Monster in these later dayes and very rarely to be met with The course he takes to ayre his Bags and keep them from moulding is to distribute freely to all that are in need If he take some pains to become richer then others it is onely to put a cheat upon that which men miscall Fortune and to manifest he hath a power as great as her's that is to make himselfe poor again at his pleasure and to show that Charity can entertain as rich
servants as she Though God hath indulged him the priviledge and inheritance of an Elder brother in the world yet he wisely Considers that the youngest of all may in equity challenge a Child's portion He esteemes it a very high Honour that God has vouchsafed to make him one of the Stewards in His great Family and he is nothing ambitious of his Epithete to his Name or reward of his pains who is recorded in the Gospell for his Injustice When by giving to the poor he lends to the Lord the Honour of being the Lord's Creditor is all the Interest he expects and doubtlesse this Happinesse is not every man's to have God his Debtor He accounts it much the safer way to trust his Charity then his Luxury with the Bag the former will bring in an even reckoning in Heaven the latter perhaps a jolly one in the Taverne but a very sad one in Hell He delights not to see any thing starve but his Lusts he lets these crave without an Answer and die without Compassion I would to God there were many in the world such as he we should then see fewer Beggars and more Gentlemen Men's backs and Bellies would not then so frequently rob and undoe their souls Now adayes the Gentleman's cloaths wind about his Body and his Body about his Soul with no greater kindnesse then the twining Ivy about the Oake the Apparell sucks away the nourishment which is due to the Body and this that other which we owe to the Soule Where he is not able to make his Estate adaequate to his deserts he takes a better Course and Levels his desires to his fortune though he seldome have all that he deserves yet he alwaies has whatsoever he Covets He never wants much of that which is needfull because he enjoyes all that he is in love with He makes his life and health not his Estate or ambition the standard his Reason and not his Humour the judge of his Necessities Such is his Temperance and Sobriety in the use of those Creatures of which by God's blessing he is made owner that he sacrifices very much to his God in the reliefe of the Indigent nothing to sin in satisfying the importunate cravings of his Carnall lusts Above all he is ashamed when Fortune hath used him very hardly and spoil'd him of many opportunities of exerciseing his Bounty and his Charitie to permit his lusts to use him yet worse and leave him nothing at all He scornes first to swaggar and swill away his estate and then Curse his fortune for useing him so roughly first to make himselfe a Beggar and then cry out upon his poor Condition or to Complain he is as poor as Iob when every day he fares as Deliciously as Dives When he has the least he showes that he is able to live with lesse and when he is brought into a low Condition he tries how he could bear up in a lower and proves by his cheerfulnesse in that some would call want and Misery that Happinesse does not Consist in superfluities He is Content with any thing and by this means enjoyes all things and is so Charitable of a little that it is evident in that little he wants not much He chuses rather to be well in the Morning then drunk over night and at any time had rather be free from the Sin then please his Companions with the Frollick His Money is too little to love but too much to throw away and he had much rather give it then lose it preferring his charity before his Game and the poor man's life before his own Wantonnesse and Riot Though he had never so much he could never have more then enough because he sees so many that want what he has and pitties all he sees in want He looks upon his estate as that which was given him for use and not for wast and upon so much of it as he loses at play as that whereby he has rob'd himselfe of a vertue and another of a Comfortable livelihood and he cannot sport himselfe with such losses §. 11. His Valour and Prudence Having spoken allready of the Gentleman's Magnanimity I shall need to adde very little of his Valour which he exercises more in Obeying his God then Opposing his Brethren His highest piece of Fortitude is that whereby he Conquers himselfe and his sin and in this he is alway practising He knowes that by thus becoming his own Captive he shall not want the usage of a Gentleman and thus being made his own Lord too he is sure to be free from all the world besides He looks upon it as the basest degree of Cowardice to yield unto those feeble Passions which did not both Reason and Religion step into their Succour would certainly become the prey of every light and Empty toy His Christian Fortitude is such that he fears not to Encounter the Great Goliah of Hell or an whole Army of such Philistins as have set themselves in array against his Happinesse all at once not though they be such as by their Cunning have allready got within him He never gives over Resisting the Divell till he have put him to flight He hath that greatest Courage which is so rarely found in others who would be call'd Gentlemen he dares be Religious in spite of the World He sets himselfe without betraying the least timidity against that great Bugbeare which so scares most men not onely out of their wits but out of all good actions Shame or Derision These are they which as the Elephants in King Pyrrhus his Army terrified the Romans with their prodigious Bulk do so affright the greatest part of our Gentry that they never leave flying till they tumble into the Bottomlesse Pit together The True Gentleman like the stout Minucius has by experience proved these Monsters to be of more Bulke then Mettall and to want nothing but an Adversary to bring them into Subjection The true Gentleman has so much true valour as not to fear the brand of a Coward where his Courage would be his sin and his Conquest his ruine He is ever the fugitive in such a chase and dare boast of nothing but being routed 'T is then alone he feares not Death when he is sure there is no Hell will follow it His life is more dear to him then that he should be Content to part with it for any thing lesse then Heaven He has an Honour and that 's his Religion a Mistresse too to vindicate and defend from all injuries and affronts and that 's his own Soul For the sakes of these two he is engaged in many a Duell with those Heresies and those Sins which would stain and Corrupt the one or steal away and deflower the other He thinks that Honour too dear which must be bought with a Murther and a Name which is never to be worne but by his Monument none of the cheapest when purchased with his life He has much Honester thoughts of his Mistresse then to
and Injury can be offer'd to the person in remembrance whosoever refuseth it especially if it be a Lady or a Minion is remembred shall be sure to hear of it with an Oath now and perhaps a Challenge anon More Ceremony is used and more Reverence by halfe to set off their drunken Revels then to grace the Worship and service of their God All must be bare and all upon their knees and a Catch instead of an Hymne this is their morning and their Evening Devotion but whether this be the true service of their God or the businesse of Gentlemen I dare appeal to those Consciences of their's which they now endeavour so to silence and Drown both by their Drinking and their Roaring Nay it seems very evident that even these Gentlemen themselves make this Sottish passe-time the most infallible marke of true Gallantry and account him a person of worth and without all exceptions fit for their Company whosoever can but take off his Cups handsomely and is versed in all the Methods and Maximes of this Hellish Art Indeed they have made it a kind of Science and have given it so many rules and lawes of late that he that will now be expert in it had need to serve out an Apprenticeship to learne all the Circumstances and termes though he be never so perfect in the Substance before Any person how Contemptible soever shall not be thought unworthy of their Company if he be but the Master of this Art Even he whom they would almost scorne to own for a man when Sober and in his right wits when he is Drunk or Mad though but a Tinker or a Cobler he is a Companion for Gentlemen I do not grudg the poor fellowes the Honour of such Society nor indeed can I think it any But I am more the Gentleman's friend and more tender of his reputation then he himselfe â—I do therefore make it my prayer as it is doubtlesse much the griefe and trouble of all good men to see them otherwise at present that they may at last become more charitable to themselves then thus to debauch and unman their own soules and fall as much below the Nature of men as the Quality of Gentlemen §. 2. An Enquiry into the more Civill sort of our English Gentlemen But let us look upon our Gentlemen in a more sober Posture though I am afraid they will take it as an Injury done them to consider them thus abstractedly from the highest degree of Debauchery take away their Pot and their Pipe and you rob the most of them of the most delightsome method they know of spending their time which is such a trouble to them This is it which is their burthen and their disease that as the Stag with the Arrow in his side they run and shift and throw themselves about from place to place and are alwaies mad to be rid on 't 'till the sad moment appear wherein they are call'd out of the world and then their time and life both equally desired vanish together This wasting of their time they esteem a thing so innocent in it selfe that they seem to apprehend a Goodnesse in it great enough to make them a pretence for all their other vices and sinfull employments shrouding them all under the generally approved names of Necessary Passe-times and diversions Cards or Dice Bowling or Hunting or Fidling or any thing that has but a Motion in it to delude the tediousnesse of their Houres shall be welcome to them and thought to be things not onely Harmelesse and Honest but as invented to this good end of passing away the time things desireable by most and very Commendable in a Gentleman In these they merrily spend both their Nights and their Daies their livelihoods and the greatest part of their lives whilest the poor neglected Soul all this while cannot be allowed so much as halfe an hour's time in the Morning by her Devotions and viewing her face in the Glasse of God's word to dresse her selfe for Heaven Into how many Gentlemen's Families shall you come where they do not ordinarily by sleeping out all the Morning make it night till noone They rise from their Beds just so Early as their Dinners may prevent their Devotions When they are thus removed from Bed to Board they feed there their Lusts better then their Bodies and yet their Bodies more then their Soules The table is the Altar where they Sacrifice their Healths to their Appetites and Temperance to Luxury They chuse their meat by it's Cost and rarity not use and wholsomnesse and it is too true a Proverb that what 's farre fetch'd and dear bought is meat for Gentlemen After they have thus satiated for a while their lusts and gratified the Delicacy of their Pallates they must sit out an houre 's Impertinent and Idle tattle to digest their excesse when they have done this they are ready for another Nap and that prepares them for another meal except the Taverne or their Game prevent it If they chance to hear of some Pamphlet Libell or Pasquill wherein some honest name is a sufferer or where Chastity is put to doe penance in an obscene sheet any piece of Drollery or wanton Ballad upon a Mistresse a New Romance or a Play presently the Newes of it is dispatch'd from one to another these shall be read and ponder'd over and over and be their Discourse and Passe-time at every meeting For mine own part it hath very rarely been my Fortune to meet with a Club of Gentlemen but as often as I have I have been frighted out of it again or have had good Cause to repent me afterwards that I was not so by that wild kind of behaviour and loosenesse of talk I heard or saw amongst them The best of their talk at any meeting is but to aske and impart the Newes then stirring or to give their judgments of the Ladies and the Fashions of the times to find fault with their own Taylors or to commend another's to Droll out the time or vie Wits by abusing each other but every man most of all himselfe If any man in the Company can and there be not many that can do so much by some slight probleme make a shift to pose his fellowes he thinks he has done wonders and has sufficiently vindicated his credit from the imputation of Ignorance or Idlenesse for ever Alas Sir what is it that even the Prime of our Gentlemen pride themselves in even they whom we are prone to esteem highly and stile Civill and Ingeniaus personsâ— what but a little vain and Glittering Apparell and hee 's the Compleatest Gentlemâ—n for the most part who wears the best suit and shines most in a tinsell bravery Who is thought the man of the highest inward accomplishments but he that can talk volubly of the Customes and vices of the Court or that which is most like it now there is none He that can tell you how much he is courted by the Ladies
may make the man a fit temple of the Holy Ghost to reside in that this stately and well-wrought Body should be but the externall Embleme of a more Beutifull and Majestick soule If it be his Good luck to find his way to Paradise straw'd all overâ—with Roses whilst other poor soules are forced to run Bare footed through Bryars and thistles stints and Pibbles whereby their feet are often so gall'd that their pace proves slow and so prick'd and scratch'd that you may trace them as they their Saviour into Heaven by their blood he ought wisely to consider that this entertainment should not retard him in his journey neither make him Phancy that he is already in the Garden and therefore may sit down or rolle his soule upon these sweets to a satisfaction alas the more he thus tumbles upon them the sooner will these tender Blossomes fade and wither They are onely scatter'd in his paths that by their fragrancy his decaying Spirits may be restored and cherish'd that he faint not ere he reach that garden where growes the Tree of life and never-perishing Flowers of sweetest pleasures even at God's right-hand for evermore If the Gentleman may boast of his honourable descent from a vertuous and if so a deservedly renowned family how much will it concerne him in Honour and Duty to provide that his Children by his vertues may be enabled to brag of as much as he It will certainly be a greater disgrace to him when his Son shall be constrain'd to say he had a Worthy Grandfather then it can now be his Glory that he himselfe can tell the world he had a Deserving father Can he Imagine it halfe so Creditable to swaggar it out with the Old Name and Title of his rotting Ancestors as to manifest their yet surviving Virtues in himselfe their Genuine off-spring What a pittifull Credit must it needs be for him to show a stranger a firme and substantiall foundation laid by his Ancestors many years agoe towards an intended Heroick and sumptuous building if all this while he have neglected by his own virtues to adde a superstructure proportionable to such a Ground-work I am Confident the Gentleman needs not a remembrancer to mind him of his Name nor any other Herald to perswade him he has a right unto it then his own Ambition and Conceit But how unlikely he is by the means he uses to make the world believe him he seems not so well to Consider Is it a matter of such Credit to show us how well he can put on his Fathers old Cloaths or play his Ape in his Silver Ierkin Is this the main Badg of his Gentilitie that he has never a Coat but what was given him by the Herald or that he lives as Beggars doe upon the Charity and Almes of the Parish Let him say what other title it is he can pretend to who by his own personall merits cannot purchase his name What does he lesse then Pick up his Crumbs under the Old-man's table Nobility without Virtue has just so much life as it can Borrow and onely breaths by the common and Ignoble breath of the People What does the unworthy Gentleman but goe from dore to dore for an Almes of Honour One throws him in a Sir another a Master a third a Good-your-Worship and with these few scraps he makes a shift to preserve alive his meagre and raw-boned Reputation A name that thus feeds onely upon the fragments of charity is not like to grow truly great in hast And a Reputation so long worn allready without mending is too vile and cheap for a true Gentleman to appear abroad withall The Cloak must needs be very thread-bare that is so old and has bin so ill used It were more Noble to weare a New one of his own buying then that of his Great-grandfather which at best he can by his scantling virtues onely fill full of patches His Father's Honour can be his but at Second-hand and to be proud of an Hereditary title onely is but to raunt it in a Dead-man's suit and like him whom he too often Imitates after his father's death to fright the world by appearing in his likenesse for when we come more narrowly to examine the Reallity of what we think we see in him we find nothing but a cheat and Delusion of the sense we catch at a bare Apparition for a substance or at best grasp a senselesse clod of cold clay insteed of a Man What is it to be thus Sollicitous after an Old Coat of Armes but to wish the Herald were a Broaker And that he might buy old scutcheons as he may old Cloaks because his Merits will not amount to the price of New ones Whilest he thus opens his Presse and showes it to be well-lined with the rich apparell of those who lived before him he does no more then what often his father's Page or Lacquey is able to doe Nay I shall be bold to say it whatever the Gentleman may therefore think of himselfe or me that he who showes his Father's Bearing without some Honourable Addition due at lest if not given to his own vertues has but little more reason to boast of his Gentility then his Father's Fool or Fidler whom I have often observed to bear his Master's Coat upon his Livory O that the Gentleman would in good earnest Consider how much all Wisemen laugh at him even in his Finest Cloaths and how much more all Good men doe pitty him when they see him with all his Borrow'd Bravery delight to tumble in the Mire He that will be a Gentleman indeed must look no lesse carefully before him on what yet remains for him to doe to maintain his Honour then behind him on what has been allready done by his Ancestors to purchase it Honour has a very delicate palate and loves to feed upon fresh Diet and very much Nauseates the Moulded Offals of Antiquity No broken Dishes come to her table neither can she subsist by Chewing the Cud after the largest feasting upon the Grandfather's deserts The sharp teeth of Time will at length enter deep into the Marble Monument under which the Fathers Ashes are laid to rest or at least the Injurious Dust will fill up and hide the fair Characters thereupon in which perhaps alone the Honour of the Son stands legible It can be no long-lived Honour where the Patent is onely a Dead-man's Epitaph It will therefore highly concerne the Gentleman in due time at least to lay a New gilt upon the Old letter that so he may transmit an Honourable Memory of his name to late Posterity rather under his own hand then his father's Zeal The Stateliest Pile yields and stoops by little and little to the importunities of Age And 't is rare to see a building left by the father so firme and weather-proof but it will require some repairing before the Death of the Son A Good-husband will therefore make hast even to prevent his fears and not