Ingenuous, honorable Lord, I know not what blind custom methodical antiquity has thrust upon us, to dedicate such books as we publish, to one great man or other. In which respect, — lest any man should challenge these, my papers, as goods uncustomed, and so extend upon them as forfeit to contempt — to the seal of your excellent censure lo! here I present them to be seen and allowed. Prize them as high or as low as you wish: if you set any price on them, I hold my labor well satisfied.
Long have I desired to prove my wit to you. My reverent, dutiful thoughts (even from their infancy) have been retainers to your glory. Now at last, I have enforced an opportunity to plead my devoted mind. All that in this fantastical Treatise I can promise is some reasonable conveyance of history, and variety of mirth.
By various of my good friends I have been dealt with to employ my dull pen in this kind, it being a clean different vein from other of my former courses of writing. How well or ill I have done it, I am ignorant: (the eye that sees round about itself, sees not into itself).
Only Your Honor's applauding encouragement has power to make me arrogant. Incomprehensible is the height of your spirit, both in heroic resolution and matters of conceit. Any book whatsoever unreprievably perishes to waste paper, if on the diamond rock of your judgment it disastrously chances to be ship- 4 wrecked.
A dear lover and cherisher you are, as well of the lovers of Poets as of Poets themselves. Amongst their sacred number I dare not ascribe myself, though now and then I speak English. That small brain I have, I convert to no further use, but to be kind to my friends and fatal to my enemies. A new brain, a new wit, a new style, a new soul will I get me, to canonize your name to posterity, if in this - my first attempt - I am not taxed as presumptuous.
Of your gracious favor I despair not, for I am not altogether Fame's outcast. This handful of leaves I offer to your view. To the leaves on trees I compare them, since they cannot grow by themselves unless they have some branches or boughs to cleave to, and with their juice and sap they are re-created and nourished evermore. So, unless these unpolished leaves of mine have some branch of Nobility whereon to depend and cleave, and with the vigorous nutriment of whose authorized commendation they may be continually fostered and refreshed, never will they grow to the world's good liking, but forthwith will fade and die on the first hour of their birth.
Your Lordship is the large spreading branch of renown from which these, my idle leaves, seek to derive their whole nourishing. It rests with you to either scornfully shake them off as worm-eaten and worthless, or in pity preserve them and cherish them for some little summer fruit you hope to find amongst them.
Gallant Squires, have this amongst you! I don't mean at Mumchance, for so I might chance come to short commons, but at noous, nous, nouum, which is in English, news of the maker. A proper fellow Page of yours called Jack Wilton, by me commends himself to you, and has bequeathed for waste paper here amongst you, certain pages of his misfortunes.
In any case, keep them preciously, as a privy token of his good will towards you. If there are some pages better than other, he craves you would honor them in their death so much so as to dry and kindle Tobacco with them. If needed, he permits you to wrap velvet pantofles in them also; so they be not woebegone at the heels, or weather-beaten like a black head with gray hairs, or mangy at the toes, like an Ape about the mouth. But, as you love good fellowship and ames ace, turn them to stop mustard-pots, rather that than the Grocers should have one patch of them to wrap mace in — a strong, hot, costly spice it is, which above all things he hates. To any use about meat and drink put them to and spare not, for they cannot do their country better service. Printers are mad whoresons, allow them some of them for napkins.
Just a little nearer to the matter and the purpose. Memorandum, every one of you after the perusing of this pamphlet, is to provide himself with a case of poignards, so that if you come in company with any man which shall dispraise it or speak against it, you may straight cry, "Sic respendeo", 6 and give him the stackado. It stands not with your honors (I assure you) to have a gentleman and a page abused in his absence.
Secondly, whereas before you were wont to swear to men on a pantofle to be true to your puissant order, now you shall swear to them on nothing but this Chronicle of the king of Pages from now on.
Thirdly, it shall be lawful of anyone whatsoever to play with false dice in a corner on the cover of this foresaid Acts and Monuments. None of the fraternity of the minorite friars shall refuse it for a pawn in the times of famine and necessity. Every Stationer's stall they pass by, whether by day or by night, they shall put off their hats to it, and make a low leg, in regard for their grand printed Capitano, who is there entombed. It shall be flat treason for any of this aforementioned catalog of the point trussers, once to name him within forty feet of an alehouse . . . unless the tavern is honorable.
Many more special, grave articles had I to give you in charge, which your Wisdoms, waiting together at the bottom of the great chamber stairs or sitting in a porch (your parliament house), may consider better of than I can deliver. Only let this suffice for a taste to the text, and a bite to pull on a good wit with, as a rasher on the coals is to pull on a cup of Wine.
Be it known to as many as will pay money enough to peruse my story, that I followed the court or the camp, or the camp and the court, when Turwin lost her maidenhead, and opened her gate to more than Jane Trosse did. There did I (soft let me drink before I go any further) reign, sole King of the cans and black jacks, Prince of the pygmies, Count Palantine of clean straw and provant, and, to conclude, Lord High Regent of rashers of the coals and red herring cobs. Paulô maiora canamus.
Well, to the purpose. What strategemical acts and monuments do you think an ingenious infant of my years might enact?
You will say it were sufficient if he slur a die, pawn his master to the utmost penny, and minister the oath of the 8 pantofle artificially. These are signs of good education I must confess, and arguments of in grace and virtue to proceed.
Oh but Aliquid latet quod non patet, there's a further path I must trace: examples confirm. Listen, lordlings, to my proceedings.
Whosoever is acquainted with the state of a camp, understands that in it are many quarters, and yet not so many as on London bridge. In those quarters are many companies: Much company, much knavery, as true as that old adage, Much courtesy, much subtlety.
Those companies, like a great deal of corn, do yield some chaff. The corn are cormorants, the chaff are good fellows, which are quickly blown to nothing with bearing a light heart in a light purse. Amongst this chaff was I winnowing my wits to live merrily, and by my troth, so I did. The prince could but command men spend their blood in his service, I could make them spend all the money they had for my pleasure.
But poverty in the end parts friends. Though I was prince of their purses, and exacted of my unthrifty subjects as much liquid allegiance as any kaiser in the world could do, yet where it is not to be had the king must lose his right. Want cannot be withstood. Men can do no more than they can do. What remained then, but that the fox's case must help, when the lion's skin is out at the elbows.
There was a Lord in the camp, let him be a Lord of misrule, if you will, for he kept a plain alehouse without welt or guard of any ivybush, and sold cider and cheese by pint and by pound to all that came (at the very name of cider I can but sigh, there is so much of it in Rhenish wine nowadays.) Well, Tendit ad sydera virtus, there's great virtue belongs (I can tell you) to a cup of cider, and very good men have sold it, and at sea it is Aqua c&oeligestis.
But that's neither here nor there, if it had no other patron but this peer of quart pots to authorize it, it were sufficient.
This great Lord, this worthy Lord, this noble Lord, thought no scorn (Lord have mercy upon us) to 9 have his great velvet breeches larded with the dropping of this dainty liquor. And yet he was an old servitor, a cavalier of an ancient house, as might appear by the arms of his ancestors, drawn very amiably in chalk on the inside of his tent door.
He and no other was the man I chose out to damn with a lewd, moneyless device, for coming to him on a day he was counting his barrels and setting the price in chalk on the head of them, I did my duty very devoutly, and told his alie honor I had matters of some secrecy to impart, if it pleased him to grant me private audience. "With me?" quod he, "Surely and you shall! Bring us a pint of cider of a fresh tap into the three cups here, wash the pot."
So into a back room he lead me, where after he had spit on his finger, and picked off two or three motes off his old moth-eaten velvet cap, and sponged and wrung all the rheumatic drivel from his ill-favored goat's beard, he bade me declare my mind, and thereupon he drank to me on the same.
I vp with a long circumstance, alias, a cunning shift of the seventeens, and discoursed to him what entire affection I had borne him time out of mind, partly for the high descent and lineage from whence he sprung, and partly for the tender care and provident respect he had of poor soldiers. That whereas the vastity of that place, (which afforded them no indifferent supply of drink or of victuals) might humble them to some extremity, and so weaken their hands, he vouchsafed in his own person to be a victualler to the camp (a rare example of magnificence and honorable courtesy) and diligently provided that without far travel, every man might for his money have cider and cheese his belly full. Nor did he sell his cheese by the way only, or his cider by the great, but abased himself with his own hands to take a shoemaker's knife, (a homely instrument for such a high personage to touch) and cut it out equally like a true 10 justiciary, in little pennyworths, that it would do a man good for to look upon. So likewise of his cider, the poor man might have his moderate draught of it, (as there is a moderation in all things) as well for his doit or his dandiprat, as the rich man for his half souse or his denier.
"Not so much," quoth I, "but this Tapster's linen apron which you wear to protect your apparel from the imperfections of the spigot, most amply bewrays your lowly mind. I speak it with tears. Too few such noblemen have we that will draw drink in linen aprons. Why you are every child's fellow! Any man that comes under the name of a soldier and a good fellow, you will sit and bear company to the last pot. Yea, and you take in as good part the homely phrase of mine host, 'Here's to you,' as if one saluted you by all the titles of your barony. These considerations, I say, which the world suffers to slip by in the channel of forgetfulness, have moved me in ardent zeal of your welfare, to forewarn you of some dangers that have beset you and your barrels."
At the name of dangers, he started up and bounced with his fist on the board so hard, that his tapster over-hearing him, cried, "Now, now, sir! By and by!" And he came and made a low leg and asked him what he lacked.
He was ready to strike his tapster, for interrupting him in attention of this his so much desired relation, but for fear of displeasing me he moderated his fury, and only sending for the other fresh pint, willed him look to the bar, and come when he is called with a devil's name.
Well, at his earnest importunity, after I had moistened my lips, to make my lie run glib to his journey's end, forward I went as follows:
"It chanced me the other night, amongst other pages, to attend where the King with his Lords and many chief leaders sat in counsel. There amongst sundry serious matters that were debated, and intelligences from the enemy given up, it was privily informed (no villains to these privy informers) 11 that you, even you that I now speak to, had . . .O! would that I had no tongue to tell the rest! By this drink, it grieves me so. . . I am not able to repeat it."
Now was my drunken Lord ready to hang himself for the end of the full point. And over my neck he throws himself, very lubberly, and entreated me, since I was a proper young Gentleman and ever looked for pleasure at his hand, to rid him soon out of this hell of suspense, and resolve him of the rest. Then he fell on his knees, wrung his hands, and I think, on my conscience, wept out all the cider that he had drunk in a week before, to move me to have pity on him. He rose and put his rustic ring on my finger, gave me his greasy purse with that single money that was in it, promised to make me his heir, and a thousand more favors, if I would expire the misery of his unspeakably, tormenting uncertainty.
I being by nature inclined to Mercy (for indeed I knew two or three good wenches of that name), bade him harden his ears, and not make his eyes abortive before their time, and he should have the inside of my breast turned outward, hear such a tale as would tempt the utmost strength of life to attend it, and not die in the midst of it.
"Why," quoth I, "myself who is but a poor childish well-wisher of yours, with the very thought, that a man of your deserts and state, by a number of peasants and varlets should be so injuriously abused in hugger mugger, have wept all my urine upward. The wheel under our city bridge, carries not so much water over the city, as my brain has welled forth gushing streams of sorrows. I have wept so immoderately and lavishly, that I thought verily my palate had been turned to pissing Conduit in London My eyes have been drunk, outrageously drunk, with giving but ordinary intercourse through their sea-circled Islands to my distilling dreariment. What shall I say? that which malice has said is the mere overthrow and murder of these (your) days. Change not your color, none can slander a 12 clear conscience to itself, receive all your fraught of misfortune in at once.
"It is buzzed in the King's head that you are a secret friend to the Enemy, and under pretence of getting a License to furnish the Camp with cider and such like provender, you have furnished the Enemy, and in empty barrels sent letters of discovery, and corn innumerable."
I might well have left here, for by this time his white liver had mixed itself with the white of his eye, and both were turned upwards, as if they had offered themselves a fair white for death to shoot at. The truth was, I very loathe my host and I should part with dry lips! Wherefore the best means that I could imagine to wake him out of his trance, was to cry loud in his ear.
"Ho, host! What's to pay? Will no man look to the reckoning here?"
And in plain verity it took expected effect, for with the noise he started and bustled, like a man that had been scared with fire out of his sleep, and ran hastily to his Tapster, and all to belabor him about the ears, for letting Gentlemen call so long, and not look to them. Presently he remembered himself, and had like to fall into his memento again, but that I met him half way, and asked his Lordship what he meant to slip his neck out of his collar so suddenly, and being revived strike his Tapster so hastily?
"Oh," quoth he, "I am bought and sold for doing my Country such good service as I have done. They are afraid of me, because my good deeds have brought me into such estimation with the Commonalty. I see, I see, it is not for the lamb to live with the wolf."
The world is well amended, thought I, with your Cidership! such another forty years nap together as Epeminedes had, would make you a perfect wise man.
"Answer me," quoth he, " my wise young Wilton, it is true that I am thus underhand dead and buried by these bad tongues?"
"Nay," quoth I, "you shall pardon me, for I have spoken 13 too much already, no definitive sentence of death shall march out of my well-meaning lips! They have but lately sucked milk, and they so suddenly change their food and seek after blood?"
"Oh, but," quoth he, "a man's friend is his friend. Fill the other pint Tapster! What said the King, did he believe it when he heard it? I pray thee say, I swear by my Nobility, none in the world shall ever be made privy, that I received any light of this matter from you."
"That firm affiance," quoth I, "had I you before, or else I would never have gone so far over the shoes, to pluck you out of the mire. Not to make many words (since you will needs know) the King says flatly: 'You are a miser and a snudge, and he never hoped better of you.'"
"Nay, then," quoth he, "Unquestionably, some Planet that loves not Cider has conspired against me."
"Moreover, which is worse, the King has vowed to give Turwin one hot breakfast, only with the bungs that he will pluck out of your barrels. I cannot stay at this time to report each circumstance that passed, but the only counsel that my long-cherished kind inclination can possibly contrive, is now in your old days to be liberal. Such victuals or provision as you have, presently distribute it frankly amongst poor Soldiers. I would let them burst their bellies with Cider, and bathe in it, before I would run into my Prince's ill opinion for a whole sea of it. The hunter pursuing the Beaver for his stones, he bites them off, and leaves them behind for him to gather up, whereby he lives quiet. If greedy hunters and hungry tale-tellers pursue you, it is for a little pelf that you have. Cast it behind you, neglect it, let them have it, lest it breed a farther inconvenience. Credit my advice, you shall find it prophetical! And thus have I discharged the part of a poor friend."
With some few like phrases of ceremony, 'your Honor's poor suppliant', and so forth, and 'farewell my good youth, I thank thee, and will remember thee', we parted.
But the next day, I 14 think, we had a dole of cider, cider in bowls, in scuppets, in helmets! And to conclude, if a man would have filled his boots full, there he might have had it! Provender thrust itself into poor soldier's pockets whether they wanted it or not. We made five peals of shot into the town together, made of nothing but spigots and faucets of discarded empty barrels! Every under-foot soldier had a distenanted tun, as Diogenes had his tub to sleep in. I myself got as many confiscated Tapsters' aprons as made me a Tent, as big as any ordinary Commanders in the field.
But in conclusion, my well-beloved Baron of double beer got him humbly on his mary-bones to the King, and complained he was old and stricken in years, and had never an heir to cast at a dog. Therefore, if it might please his Majesty to take his lands into his hands, and allow him some reasonable pension to live, he should be marvelously well pleased. As for wars, he was weary of them. Yet, as long as his highness ventured his own person, he would not flinch a foot, but make his withered body a buckler to bear off any blow advanced against him.
The King, marveling at this alteration of his cider-merchant (for so he often pleasantly termed him), with a little farther talk bolted out the whole complotment. Then I was pitifully whipped for my holiday lie, though they made themselves merry with it on many a Winter's evening after.
Despite this, his good Ass-headed Honor, mine host, persevered in his former request to the King to accept his lands, and allow him a beadsmanry, or out-brothership of brachet. Which, through his vehement insistence, took effect, and the King jestingly said, since he would needs have it so, he would distraine one part of his land for impost of cider, which he was behind with.
This was one of my famous achievements, insomuch as I never light upon the like famous Fool, but I have done a thousand better jests, if they had been booked in order as 15 they were begotten. It is a pity posterity should be deprived of such precious Records. And yet there is no remedy,· and yet there is, too, — for when all fails, well fares a good memory.
Gentle Readers (look you be gentle now, since I have called you so), as freely as my knavery was mine own, it shall be yours to use in the way of honesty.
Even in this expedition of Turwin (for the King stood not long a-thrumming of buttons there) it happened that I fell in (I would it had fallen out other wise for his sake) with an ugly, mechanical Captain. You must think in an Army, where truncheons are in their state-house, it is a flat stab once to name a Captain without cap in hand. Well, suppose, he was a Captain, and had never a a good cap of his own, but I was willing to lend him one of my Lord's cast velvet caps, and a weather-beaten feather, wherewith he threatened his soldiers afar off, just as Jupiter is said, with the shaking of his hair, to have made heaven and earth to quake. Suppose by the parings of a pair of false dice, I apparelled both him and myself many a time and oft.
And surely, not to slander the devil, if any man ever deserved the golden dice the King of the Parthians sent to Demetrius, it was I. I had the right vein of sucking up a die 'twixt the dints of my fingers, not a crevice in my hand but could swallow a quater trey for a need. In the line of life on my palm many a dead lift did there lurk, but it was nothing towards the maintenance of a family. This Monsieur Captain ate up the cream of my earnings, and Crede mihi, res est ingeniosa dare, any man is a fine fellow as long as he has any money in his purse. That money is like the Marigold, which opens and shuts with the Sun: if Fortunes smiles or one is in favour, it flows; if the evening of Age comes on, or he falls into disgrace, it fades and is not to be found. I was my crafts' master though I was but young, and could as soon decline Nominatiuo 16 hic Asinue, as a greater Clerk. Therefore, I though it not convenient my Soldado should have my purse any longer for his drum to play upon, but I would give him Jack Drum's entertainment, and send him packing.
This was my plot:
I knew a piece of service of Intelligence, which was presently to be done, that requires a man with all his five senses to effect it, and would overthrow any fool that should undertake it. To this service did I animate and egg my aforesaid costs and charges, alias, Senior Velvet-cap, whose head was not encumbered with too much forecast; and coming to him in his cabin about dinner time, where I found him very devoutly paring of his nails for want of other repast, I entertained him with this solemn oration.
"Captain, you perceive how near both of us are driven. The dice of late are grown as melancholy as a dog. High men and low men both prosper alike, langrets, fullams, and all the whole fellowship of them, will not afford a man his dinner. Some other means must be invented to prevent imminent extremity. My state, you are not ignorant, depends on trencher service, your advancement must be derived from the valour of your arm. In the delays of Siege, desert hardly gets a day of hearing: 'tis gowns must direct and guns enact all the wars that is to be made against walls. There rests no way for you to climb suddenly, but by doing some rare stratagem, the like not before heard of: and fitly at this time occasion is offered.
"There is a feat the King is desirous to have wrought on some great Man of the Enemy's side. Really, it requires not so much resolution as discretion to bring it to pass. And yet, resolution enough should be shown in it, too, being so full of hazardous jeopardy as it is. Hark in your ear, this it is: without more drumbling or pausing. If you will undertake it, and work it through stitch (as you may, before the King has determined which way to go about it), I warrant you are made while you live. Then you need not care 17 which way your staff falls. If it proves not so, then cut off my head."
Oh, my Auditors, had you seen him, how he stretched out his limb, scratched his scabbed elbows at this speech, how he set his cap over his eyebrows like a politician, and then folded his arms one in another, and nodded with his head, as who would say, 'let the French beware for they shall find me a devil!'. If (I say) you had seen but half the action that he used, of shrucking up his shoulder, smiling scornfully, playing with his fingers on his button, and biting the lip; you would have laughed your face and your knees together.
The iron being hot, I thought to lay on the load, for in any case I would not have his humor cool. As before I laid open to him the brief sum of the service, so now I began to urge the honorableness of it, and what a rare thing it was to be a right politician, how much esteemed of Kings and princes, and how diverse of mean Parentage have come to be Monarchs by it. Then I discoursed of the qualities and properties of him in every respect. How like the Wolf he must draw the breath from a man long before he be seen. How like a Hare he must sleep with his eyes open. How as the Eagle in his flying casts dust in the eyes of Crows and other Fowls, for to blind them, so he must cast dust in the eyes of his enemies, delude their sight one means or other that they dive not into his subtleties. How he must be familiar with all and trust none. Drink, carouse, and lecher with him from whom he hopes to wring any matter, swear and forswear, rather than be suspected, and in a word, have the Art of dissembling at his fingers' ends as perfect as any Courtier.
"Perhaps," quoth I, "you may have some few greasy Cavaliers that will seek to dissuade you from it, and they will not stick to stand on their three half-penny honor, swearing and staring that a man is better off to be a hangman than an Intelligencer, and call him a sneaking Eavesdropper, a scraping hedgecreeper, and a piperly pickethanke. But 18 you must not be discouraged by their talk, for the most part of these beggarly condemners of wit, are huge burly-bond Butchers like Ajax, good for nothing but to strike down blows on a wedge with a cleaving beetle, or stand hammering all day upon bars of iron. The whelps of a Bear never grow but sleeping, and these Bear-wards having big limbs shall be preferred though they do nothing.
"You have read stories (I'll be sworn he never looked in book in his life) of how many of the Roman worthies there were that had gone as Spies into their Enemies' Camp? Ulysses, Nestor, Diomen, went as spies together in the night into the Tents of Rhæsus>, and intercepted Dolon the spy of the Trojans. None ever discredited the trade of Intelligencers but Judas, and he hanged himself. Danger will put wit into any man. Architas made a wooden Dove to fly; by which proportion I see no reason that the veriest block in the world should despair of any thing.
"Though nature be contrary inclined, it may be altered. Yet, usually, those whom she denies her ordinary gifts in one thing, she doubles them in another. That which the Ass wants in wit, he has in honesty, who ever saw him kick or winch, or use any jade's tricks? though he live an hundred years you shall never hear that he breaks pasture. Amongst men, he that has not a good wit, light has a good iron memory, and he that has neither of both, has some bones to carry burdens. Blind men have better noses than other men, the bull's horns serve him as well as hands to fight withal, the Lion's paws are as good to him as a pole-axe to knock down any that resist him, the boar's tusks serve him in better stead than a sword and buckler. What need the snail care for eyes, when he feels the way with his two horns, as well as if he were as quick-sighted as a decipherer. There is a fish, that having no wings, supports herself in the air with her fins. Admit that you had neither wit nor capacity, as sure in my judgment there is
19
none equal to you in idiotism. But if you have simplicity and secrecy, serpents themselves will think you a serpent, for what serpent is there but hides his sting. And yet, whatever else is wanting, a good plausible tongue in such a man of employment, can hardly be spared, which as the fore-named serpent, with his winding tail fetches in those that come near him, so with a ravishing tale — it gathers all men's hearts unto him. Which if he have not, let him never look to engender by the mouth as ravens and doves do, that is, mount or be great by undermining. Sir, I am certain that all these imperfections I speak of in you have their natural resiance.[q?] I see in your face, that you were born with the swallow to feed flying, to get much treasure and honor by travel. None is so fit as you for so important an enterprise! Our vulgar politicians are but flies swimming on the stream of subtlety superficially, in comparison with your singularity. Their blind, narrow eyes cannot pierce into the profundity of hypocrisy. You alone with Palamen, can pry into Ulysses mad counterfeiting. You can discern Achilles from a chamber maid, though he be decked with his spindle and distaff. As Jove> dining with
This silver-sounding tale made such sugared harmony in his ears. That with the sweet meditation of what a more than miraculous politician he should be, and what kingly promotion should come tumbling on him thereby, he could have found in his heart to have packed up his pipes, and to have gone to heaven without a bait. Yea, he was more inflamed and ravished with it, than a young man called Taurimontanus was with the Phrygian melody, who was so incensed and fired by it, that he would needs run 20 presently upon it, and set a Courtezan's house on fire that had angered him.
No remedy there was, but I must help to furnish him with money. I did so, as who will not make his enemy a bridge of gold to flee by? Very earnestly he conjured me to make no man living privy to his departure, in regard of his place and charge, and on his honor assured me, his return should be very short and successful. I, I, shorter by the neck (thought I) in the meantime, let this be thy posy, [Poesie? poem?]I live in hope to 'scape the rope.
He is gone. God send him good shipping to Wapping. And by now, if you will, let him be a pitiful poor fellow and undone forever.
For my own part, if he had been my own brother, I could have done no more for him than I did. For straight after his back was turned, I went in all love and kindness to the Marshall General of the field, and certified him that such a man was lately fled to the Enemy, and got his place begged for another immediately.
What became of him after you shall hear.
To the Enemy he went and offered his service, railing egregiously against the King of England, he swore, as he was a Gentleman and a soldier, he would be revenged on him. And let but the King of France follow his counsel, he would drive him from Turwin walls yet, before three days came to an end. All these were good humors, but the tragedy follows.
The French King hearing of such a prating fellow that had come, desired to see him. But yet he feared treason, willing one of his Minions to take upon him his person, and he would stand by as a private person while he was examined.
Why should I use any idle delays?
In was Captain gogs wounds brought, after he was thoroughly searched. Not a louse in his doublet was let pass, but was asked Queuela, and charged to stand in the King's name. The molds of his buttons they turned out, to see if they were not bullets covered over with thread. The cod-piece in his devil's breeches (for they were then in fashion) they said plainly was a case for a 21 pistol.
If he had had ever a hobnail in his shoes, it would have hanged him, and he would never have known who had harmed him. But as luck was, he had no mite of any metal about him. He took part with none of the four Ages, neither the golden Age, the silver Age, the brazen nor the iron Age. Only his purse was aged in emptiness, and, I think, verily a puritan, for it kept itself free from any pollution by crosses.
Standing before the supposed King, he was asked what he was, and why he came. To which, in a glorious, bragging humor he answered, that he was a gentleman, a captain commander, a chief leader, that came from the King of England upon discontentment. Questioned of the particular cause, he had not a word to bless himself with, yet fain he would have patched out a polt-foot tale, but (God knows) it had not one true leg to stand on.
Then began he to smell on the villainy so rammishly, that none there but was ready to rend him to pieces, yet the Minion King kept in his choler, and propounded unto him further, what of the king of England's secrets (so advantageous) he was privy to, as might remove him from the siege of Turwin in three days. He said diverse, diverse matter, which asked a longer conference. But in good honesty, they were lies, which he had not yet stamped. Here, the true King stepped forth, and commanded them to lay hand on the Lozell, and that he should be tortured to confess the truth, for he was a spy and nothing else.
He no sooner saw the wheel and the torments set before him, than he cried out like a Rascal, and said he was a poor Captain in the English Camp, and suborned by one Jack Wilton (a Nobleman's Page) and no other, to come and kill the French King in a bravery and return, and that he had no other intention in the world.
This confession could not choose but move them all to laughter, in that he made it as light a matter to kill their 22 King and come back, as to go to Islington and eat a mess of Cream, and come home again. Nay, and besides, he protested that he had no other intention, as if that were not enough to hang him.
Adam never fell till God made fools. All this could not keep his joints from ransacking on the Wheel, for they vowed either to make him a Confessor or a Martyr with a trice. When he still sung all one song, they told the King he was a fool, and that some shrewd head had knavishly wrought on him. Therefore, it should stand with his honour to whip him out of the Camp and send him home.
That persuasion took place, and soundly was he lashed out of their liberties, and sent home by a Herald with this message: that just so the King his Master hoped to whip home all the English fools very shortly. Answer was returned, that that shortly, was a long-lie, and they were shrewd fools that should drive the French-man out of his Kingdom, and make him glad with Corinthian Dionisius to play the Schoolmaster.
The Herald being dismissed, our afflicted Intelligencer was called coram nobis, how he sped judge you, but something he was adjudged too. The sparrow for his lechery lives but a year, he for his treachery was turned on the toe, Plura dolor prohibet.
Here let me triumph a while, and ruminate a line or two on the excellence of my wit, but I will not breathe neither till I have divulged all my knavery.
Another Switzer Captain that was far gone for want of the wench, I led astray most notoriously, for he being a monstrous unthrift of battle-axes (as one that cared not in his anger to bid fly out scuttles to five score of them) and a notable emboweler of quart pots, I came disguised unto him in the form of a half crown wench, by gown and attire according to the custom then in request. I vow, I had my curtsies in cue, or in a quart pot rather, for they dived into the very entrails of the dust, and I simpered 23 with my countenance like a porridge pot on the fire when it first begins to seethe. The sobriety of the circumstance is, that after he had courted me and all, and given me the earnest-penny of impiety, some six Crowns at the least as an appetizer to iniquity, I feigned an impregnable excuse to be gone and never came at him after.
Yet, I did not leave off here, but committed a little more scutchery.
A company of coystrell Clerks (who were in band with Satan, and not of any Soldier's collar nor hat-band) pinched a number of good minds to Godward of their provender. They would not let a dram of dead-pay over-slip them. They would not lend a groat of the week to come, to him that had spent his money before the week was done. They out-faced the greatest and most magnanimous Servitors in their sincere and finigraphicall clean shirts and cuffs. A Louse (that was any Gentleman's companion) they thought scorn of. Their near-bitten beards must in a devil's name be dewed every day with Rosewater. Hogs could have nary a hair left on their backs after making them rubbing-brushes to rouse their Crab-lice. They would in no wise permit that the motes in the Sunbeams should be full-mouthed beholders of their clean phinifide apparel. Their shoes shined as bright as a silk-stone. Their hands troubled and foiled [fouled ?q] more water with washing than the Camel does, that never drinks till the whole stream is troubled. Summarily, never any were one half as fantastical as they.
My masters, you may conceive of me what you wish, but I think confidently I was ordained God's scourge from above for their dainty finicalitie. The hour of their punishment could no longer be prorogued, but vengeance must have at them, at all events. So it was, that the most of these above-named goose-quill Braggadocios, were mere cowards and cravens, and dared not so much as throw a penful of ink into the Enemy's face, if proof were made.
24Therefore, on the experience of their pusillanimity I thought to raise the foundation of my roguery.
What I did now but one day made a false alarm in the quarter where they lay, to try how they would stand to their tackling. And with a pitiful outcry I warned them to fly, for there was treason afoot, they were environed and beset. Upon the first watch-word of treason that was given; I think they betook them to their heels very stoutly. They left their pens and ink-horns and paper behind them. For spoil they resigned their desks, with the money that was in them to the mercy of the vanquisher. And in fine, they left them and my fellows (their fool-catchers) Lords of the field. How we dealt with them, their disburdened desks can best tell, but this I am assured, we fared the better for it for a fortnight of fasting days after.
I must not place a volume in the precincts of a pamphlet. Sleep an hour or two, and dream that Tournai and Turwin is won, that the King is shipped again into England, and that I am close at hard meat at Windsor or at Hampton Court. What will you in your indifferent opinions allow me for my travel, no more signiorie over the Pages than I had before? Yea, whether you will part with so much probably friendly suppose or no, I'll have it in spite of your hearts.
For your instruction and godly consolation, be informed that at that time I was no common squire, no undertrodden torch-bearer. I had my feather in my cap as big as a flag in the fore-top, my French doublet gelte in the belly as though (like a pig ready to be spitted) all my guts had been plucked out, a pair of side-paned hose that hung down like two scales filled with Holland cheeses, my long stock that sat close to my dock, and smothered not a scab or a lecherous hairy sinew on the calf of the leg, my rapier pendant like a round stick fastened in the tacklings for skippers the better to climb by, my cape cloak of black cloth,
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overspreading my back like a thorne-backe, or an Elephant's ear that hangs on his shoulders like a country housewife's banskin, which she twirls her spindle on. And in consummation of my curiosity, my hands without gloves, all a more French, and a black budge edging of a beard on the upper lip, and the like sable auglet to excrements in the rising of the angle of my chin. I was the first that brought in the order of passing into the Court which I derived