The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works

by Thomas Nashe

  The Complaint of Pride

  Oh, but a far greater enormity reigneth in the heart of the Court. Pride, the perverter of all virtue, sitteth apparelled in the merchant’s spoils, and ruin of young citizens; and scorneth learning, that gave their upstart fathers titles of gentry.

  The Nature of an Upstart

  All malcontent sits the greasy son of a clothier,83 and complains, like a decayed earl, of the ruin of ancient houses; whereas the weaver’s loom first framed the web of his honour, and the locks of wool, that bushes and brambles have took for toll of insolent sheep, that would needs strive for the wall of a fir bush, have made him of the tenths of their tar, a squire of low degree; and of the collections of their scatterings, a Justice, Tam Marti quam Mercurio, 84 of Peace and of Coram.85 He will be humorous,86 forsooth, and have a brood of fashions by himself. Sometimes, because Love commonly wears the livery of Wit, he will be an Inamorato Poeta, and sonnet a whole quire of paper in praise of Lady Swine-snout, his yellow-faced mistress, and wear a feather of her rainbeaten fan for a favour, like a fore-horse. All Italianato is his talk, and his spade peak87 is as sharp as if he had been a pioneer before the walls of Rouen.88 He will despise the barbarism of his own country and tell a whole Legend of Lies of his travels unto Constantinople. If he be challenged to fight, for his dilatory excuse he objects that it is not the custom of the Spaniard or the German to look back to every dog that barks. You shall see a dapper jack, that hath been but over at Dieppe, wring his face round about, as a man would stir up a mustard pot, and talk English through the teeth, like Jacques Scabbed-hams or Monsieur Mingo de Mousetrap; when, poor slave, he hath but dipped his bread in wild boar’s grease, and come home again; or been bitten by the shins by a wolf; and saith he hath adventured upon the barricades of Gurney or Guingan89 and fought with the young Guise90 hand to hand.

  The Counterfeit Politician

  Some think to be counted rare politicians and statesmen by being solitary; as who should say, ‘I am a wise man, a brave man, Secreta mea mihi; Frustra sapit, qui sibi non sapit, 91 and there is no man worthy of my company or friendship;’ when, although he goes ungartered like a malcontent cut-purse, and wears his hat over his eyes like one of the cursed crew, yet cannot his stabbing dagger, or his nitty love-lock,92 keep him out of The Legend of Fantastical Coxcombs.

  I pray ye, good Monsieur Devil, take some order, that the streets be not pestered with them so as they are. Is it not a pitiful thing that a fellow that eats not a good meal’s meat in a week, but beggareth his belly quite and clean to make his back a certain kind of brokerly gentleman, and now and then, once or twice in a term, comes to the eighteen pence ordinary,93 because he would be seen amongst cavaliers and brave94 courtiers, living otherwise all the year long with salt butter and Holland cheese in his chamber, should take up a scornful melancholy in his gait and countenance, and talk as though our commonwealth were but a mockery of government, and our magistrates fools, who wronged him in not looking into his deserts, not employing him in state matters, and that, if more regard were not had of him very shortly, the whole realm should have a miss of him, and he would go (ay, marry, would he) where he should be more accounted of?

  Is it not wonderful ill-provided, I say, that this disdainful companion is not made one of the fraternity of fools, to talk before great states, with some old moth-eaten politician, of mending highways and leading armies into France?

  The Prodigal Young Master

  A young heir or cockney,95 that is his mother’s darling, if he have played the waste-good at the Inns of the Court or about London, and that neither his student’s pension nor his unthrift’s credit will serve to maintain his college of whores any longer, falls in a quarrelling humour with his fortune, because she made him not King of the Indies, and swears and stares, after ten in the hundred,96 that ne’er a such peasant as his father or brother shall keep him under: he will to the sea, and tear the gold out of the Spaniards’ throats, but he will have it, by’rlady. And when he comes there, poor soul, he lies in brine, in ballast, and is lamentable sick of the scurvies; his dainty fare is turned to a hungry feast of dogs and cats, or haberdine97 and poor John98 at the most, and, which is lamentablest of all, that without mustard.

  As a mad ruffian, on a time, being in danger of shipwreck by a tempest, and seeing all other at their vows and prayers, that if it would please God, of his infinite goodness, to deliver them out of that imminent danger, one would abjure this sin whereunto he was addicted, another make satisfaction for that violence he had committed. He, in a desperate jest, began thus to reconcile his soul to heaven:

  ‘O Lord, if it may seem good to thee to deliver me from this fear of untimely death, I vow before thy throne and all thy starry host, never to eat haberdine more whilst I live.’

  Well, so it fell out, that the sky cleared and the tempest ceased, and this careless wretch, that made such a mockery of prayer, ready to set foot a-land, cried out, ‘Not without mustard, good Lord, not without mustard’; as though it had been the greatest torment in the world to have eaten haberdine without mustard.

  But this by the way, what penance can be greater for Pride than to let it swing in his own halter? Dulce bellum inexpertis:99 there’s no man loves the smoke of his own country, that hath not been singed in the flame of another soil. It is a pleasant thing over a full pot to read the fable of thirsty Tantalus; but a harder matter to digest salt meats at sea, with stinking water.

  The Pride of the Learned

  Another misery of pride it is, when men that have good parts and bear the name of deep scholars cannot be content to participate one faith with all Christendom, but, because they will get a name to their vainglory, they will set their self-love to study to invent new sects of singularity, thinking to live when they are dead, by having their sects called after their names, as Donatists of Donatus,100 Arians of Arius,101 and a number more new faith-founders, that have made England the exchange of innovations, and almost as much confusion of religion in every quarter, as there was of tongues at the building of the Tower of Babel. Whence, a number that fetch the articles of their belief out of Aristotle, and think of heaven and hell as the heathen philosophers, take occasion to deride our ecclesiastical state and all ceremonies of divine worship as bugbears and scarecrows,102 because, like Herod’s soldiers, we divide Christ’s garment amongst us in so many pieces, and of the vesture of salvation make some of us babies’ and apes’ coats, others straight trusses and devil’s breeches; some galligaskins103 or a shipman’s hose, like the Anabaptists104 and adulterous Familists;105 others, with the Martinists,106 a hood with two faces, to hide their hypocrisy; and, to conclude, some, like the Barrowists107 and Green-woodians,108 a garment full of the plague, which is not to be worn before it be new washed.

  Hence atheists triumph and rejoice, and talk as profanely of the Bible, as of Bevis of Hampton.109 I hear say there be mathematicians abroad that will prove men before Adam;110 and they are harboured in high places, who will maintain it to the death that there are no devils.

  It is a shame, Signor Beelzebub, that you should suffer yourself thus to be termed a bastard, or not approve to your predestinate children, not only that they have a father, but that you are he that must own them.* These are but the suburbs of the sin we have in hand: I must describe to you a large city, wholly inhabited with this damnable enormity.

  The Pride of the Artificers

  In one place let me shew you a base artificer, that hath no revenues to boast on but a needle in his bosom, as brave as any pensioner or nobleman.

  The Pride of Merchants’ Wives

  In another corner, Mistress Minx, a merchant’s wife, that will eat no cherries, forsooth, but when they are at twenty shillings a pound, that looks as simperingly as if she were besmeared,111 and jets it as gingerly as if she were dancing the Canaries.112 She is so finical113 in her speech, as though she spake nothing but what she had first sewed over before in her samplers,114 and the puling accent of her voice is like a feigned trebl
e, or one’s voice that interprets to the puppets.115 What should I tell how squeamish she is in her diet, what toil she puts her poor servants unto, to make her looking glasses in the pavement? How she will not go into the fields, to cower on the green grass, but she must have a coach for her convoy; and spends half a day in pranking herself if she be invited to any strange place? Is not this the excess of pride, Signor Satan? Go to, you are unwise if you make her not a chief saint in your calendar.

  The Pride of Peasants sprung up of Nothing

  The next object that encounters my eyes is some such obscure upstart gallants as without desert or service are raised from the plough to be checkmates116 with princes. And these I can no better compare than to creatures that are bred sine coitu, 117 as crickets in chimneys; to which I resemble poor scullions, that, from turning spit in the chimney corner, are on the sudden hoised up from the kitchen into the waiting chamber, or made barons of the beeves,118 and marquesses of the marybones;119 some by corrupt water, as gnats, to which we may liken brewers, that, by retailing filthy Thames water, come in a few years to be worth forty or fifty thousand pound; others by dead wine, as little flying worms,120 and so the vintners in like case; others by slime, as frogs, which may be alluded to Mother Bunch’s121 slimy ale, that hath made her and some other of her fill-pot faculty so wealthy; others by dirt, as worms, and so I know many gold-finders122 and hostlers come up; some by herbs, as cankers, and after the same sort our apothecaries; others by ashes, as scarabs,123 and how else get our colliers the pence? Others from the putrefied flesh of dead beasts, as bees of bulls, and butchers by fly-blown beef; wasps of horses, and hackney-men by selling their lame jades to huntsmen for carrion.

  Yet am I not against it, that these men by their mechanical124 trades should come to be sparage* gentlemen and chuff-headed burgomasters; but that better places should be possessed by coistrels,125 and the cobbler’s crow,126 for crying but Ave Caesar, be more esteemed than rarer birds, that have warbled sweeter notes unrewarded. But it is no marvel, for as hemlock fatteth quails and henbane swine, which to all other is poison, so some men’s vices have power to advance them, which would subvert any else that should seek to climb by them; and it is enough in them, that they can pare their nails well to get them a living, whenas the seven liberal sciences127 and a good leg will scarce get a scholar a pair of shoes and a canvas doublet.

  These whelps of the first litter of gentility, these exhalations, drawn up to the heaven of honour from the dunghill of abject fortune, have long been on horseback to come riding to your Devilship; but, I know not how, like Saint George,128 they are always mounted but never move. Here they outface town and country, and do nothing but bandy factions with their betters. Their big limbs yield the commonwealth no other service but idle sweat, and their heads, like rough-hewn globes, are fit for nothing but to be the blockhouses of sleep. Raynold the fox129 may well bear up his tail in the lion’s den, but when he comes abroad he is afraid of every dog that barks. What cur will not bawl and be ready to fly in a man’s face when he is set on by his master, who, if he be not by to encourage him, he casts his tail betwixt his legs and steals away like a sheepbiter? Ulysses was a tall man130 under Ajax’ shield; but by him-self he would never adventure but in the night. Pride is never built upon some pillars; and let his supporters fail him never so little, you shall find him very humble in the dust. Wit oftentimes stands instead of a chief arch to underprop it; in soldiers, strength; in women, beauty.

  The Base Insinuating of Drudges and their

  Practice to Aspire

  Drudges, that have no extraordinary gifts of body nor of mind, filch themselves into some nobleman’s service, either by bribes or by flattery, and, when they are there, they so labour it with cap and knee, and ply it with privy whisperings, that they wring themselves into his good opinion ere he be aware. Then do they vaunt themselves over the common multitude, and are ready to outbrave any man that stands by himself. Their lord’s authority is as a rebater131 to bear up the peacock’s tail of their boasting, and anything that is said or done to the unhandsoming of their ambition is straight wrested to the name of treason. Thus do weeds grow up whiles no man regards them, and the Ship of Fools132 is arrived in the Haven of Felicity, whilst the scouts of Envy contemn the attempts of any such small barks.

  But beware you that be great men’s favourites; let not a servile, insinuating slave creep betwixt your legs into credit with your lords; for peasants that come out of the cold of poverty, once cherished in the bosom of prosperity, will straight forget that ever there was a winter of want, or who gave them room to warm them. The son of a churl cannot choose but prove ingrateful, like his father. Trust not a villain that hath been miserable, and is suddenly grown happy. Virtue ascendeth by degrees of desert unto dignity. Gold and lust may lead a man a nearer way to promotion; but he that hath neither comeliness nor coin to commend him undoubtedly strides over time by stratagems,* if of a molehill he grows to a mountain in a moment. This is that which I urge; there is no friendship to be had with him that is resolute to do or suffer anything rather than to endure the destiny whereto he was born; for he will not spare his own father or brother, to make himself a gentleman.

  The Pride of the Spaniard

  France, Italy and Spain, are all full of these false-hearted Machivillions; but, properly, pride is the disease of the Spaniard, who is born a braggart in his mother’s womb. For, if he be but seventeen years old and hath come to the place where a field was fought (though half a year before), he then talks like one of the giants that made war against Heaven, and stands upon his honour, as much as if he were one of Augustus’ soldiers,133 of whom he first instituted the order of heralds. And let a man soothe him in this vein of killcow134 vanity, you may command his heart out of his belly to make you a rasher on the coals, if you will, next your heart.135

  The Pride of the Italian

  The Italian is a more cunning proud fellow, that hides his humour far cleanlier, and indeed seems to take a pride in humility, and will proffer a stranger more courtesy than he means to perform. He hateth him deadly that takes him at his word; as, for example, if upon occasion of meeting, he request you to dinner or supper at his house, and that at the first or second entreaty you promise to be his guest, he will be the mortalest enemy you have. But if you deny him, he will think you have manners and good bringing up, and will love you as his brother. Marry, at the third or fourth time you must not refuse him. Of all things he counteth it a mighty disgrace to have a man pass jostling by him in haste on a narrow causey136 and ask him no leave, which he never revengeth with less than a stab.

  The Pride of the Frenchman

  The Frenchman (not altered from his own nature) is wholly compact of deceivable courtship, and for the most part loves none but himself and his pleasure; yet though he be the most Grand Signeur of them all, he will say, A vostre service et commendemente Mounseur, to the meanest vassal he meets. He thinks he doth a great favour to that gentle-man or follower of his to whom he talks sitting on his close stool; and with that favour, I have heard, the queen mother wonted to grace the noblemen of France. And a great man of their nation coming in time past over into England, and being here very honourably received, he, in requital of his admirable entertainment, on an evening going to the privy, (as it were to honour extraordinarily our English lords appointed to attend him), gave one the candle, another his girdle, and another the paper; but they, not acquainted with this new kind of gracing, accompanying him to the privy door, set down the trash and so left him; which he, considering what inestimable kindness he extended to them therein more than usual, took very heinously.

  The Pride of the Dane

  The most gross and senseless proud dolts (in a different kind from all these) are the Danes, who stand so much upon their unwieldy burly-boned soldiery that they account of no man that hath not a battle-axe at his girdle to hough137 dogs with, or wears not a cock’s feather in a red thrummed138 hat like a cavalier. Briefly, he is the best fool braggart
under heaven. For besides nature hath lent him a flabberkin139 face, like one of the four winds, and cheeks that sag like a woman’s dugs over his chin-bone, his apparel is so puffed up with bladders of taffety, and his back like beef stuffed with parsley, so drawn out with ribbons and devices, and blistered with light sarsenet140 bastings, that you would think him nothing but a swarm of butterflies if you saw him afar off.* Thus walks he up and down in his majesty, taking a yard of ground at every step, and stamps the earth so terrible, as if he meant to knock up a spirit, when, foul drunken bezzle,141 if an Englishman set his little finger to him, he falls like a hog’s-trough that is set on one end. Therefore I am the more vehement against them, because they are an arrogant, ass-headed people, that naturally hate learning and all them that love it. Yea, and for they would utterly root it out from among them, they have withdrawn all rewards from the professors thereof. Not Barbary itself is half so barbarous as they are.

  The Danes Enemies to all Learning: No Rewards Amongst them for Desert

  First, whereas the hope of honour maketh a soldier in England; bishoprics, deaneries, prebendaries, and other private dignities animate our divines to such excellence; the civil lawyers have their degrees and consistories of honour by themselves, equal in place with knights and esquires; the common lawyers (suppose in the beginning they are but husbandmen’s sons) come in time to be chief fathers of the land, and many of them not the meanest of the Privy Council: there, the soldier may fight himself out of his skin and do more exploits than he hath doits142 in his purse, before from a common mercenary he come to be corporal of the mould-cheese, or the lieutenant get a captainship. None but the son of a corporal must be a corporal, nor any be captain but the lawful begotten of a captain’s body. Bishoprics, deaneries, prebendaries, why, they know no such functions; a sort of ragged ministers they have, of whom they count as basely as water-bearers. If any of their noblemen refrain three hours in his lifetime from drinking, to study the laws, he may perhaps have a little more government put into his hands than another; but otherwise, burgomasters and gentlemen bear all the sway of both swords, spiritual and temporal. It is death there for any but a husbandman to marry a husbandman’s daughter, or a gentleman’s child to join with any but the son of a gentleman. Marry, this, the King may well banish, but he cannot put a gentleman unto death in any cause whatsoever, which makes them stand upon it so proudly as they do. For fashion sake some will put their children to school, but they set them not to it till they are fourteen year old; so that you shall see a great boy with a beard learn his ABC and sit weeping under the rod when he is thirty years old.