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But the next day I 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: provant thrust itself into poor soldiers' pockets whether they would or no. We made five peals of shot into the town together of nothing but spiggots 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 tapster's aprons as made me a tent as big as any ordinary commander's in the field. But in conclusion, my wellbeloved 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, wherefore if it might please his Majesty to take his lands into his hands, and allow him some reasonable pension to live, he should be marvellously 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, marvelling 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 was I pitifully whipped for my holiday lie, though they made themselves merry with it many a winter's evening after.

THOMAS DEKKER (1570?-1641?)

THE GULL'S HORNBOOK
CHAPTER VI

HOW A GALLANT SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF IN
A PLAY-HOUSE

The theatre is your poets' royal exchange, upon which their muses (that are now turned to merchants) meeting, barter away that light commodity of words for a lighter ware than words, plaudities, and the breath of the great beast; which (like the threatenings of two cowards) vanish all into air. Players and their factors, who put away the stuff, and make the best of it they possibly can (as indeed 'tis their parts so to do), your gallant, your courtier, and your captain, had wont to be the soundest paymasters; and I think are still the surest chapmen; and these, by means that their heads are well stocked, deal upon this comical freight by the gross when your groundling, and gallery-commoner buys his sport by the penny,

and, like a haggler, is glad to utter it again by retailing.

Since then the place is so free in entertainment, allowing a stool as well to the farmer's son as to your templer:1 that your stinkard has the selfsame liberty to be there in his tobacco fumes, which your sweet courtier hath: and that your carman and tinker claim as strong a voice in their suffrage, and sit to give judgment on the play's life and death, as well as the proudest momus among the tribes of critic: it is fit that he, whom the most tailors' bills do make room for, when he comes, should not be basely (like a viol) cased up in a corner.

Whether therefore the gatherers' of the public or private playhouse stand to receive the afternoon's rent, let our gallant (having paid it) presently advance himself up to the throne of the stage. I mean not into the lord's room (which is now but the stage's suburbs): no, those boxes, by the iniquity of custom, conspiracy of waiting women and gentlemen ushers, that there sweat together, and the covetousness of sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the rear, and much new satin is there damned, by being smothered to death in darkness. But on the very rushes where the comedy is to dance, yea, and under the state of Cambises himself must our feathered estridge,' like a piece of ordnance, be planted, valiantly (because impudently) beating down the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality.

For do but cast up a reckoning, what large comings-in are pursed up by sitting on the stage. First a conspicuous eminence is got; by which means, the best and most essential parts of a gallant (good clothes, a proportionable leg, white hand, the Persian lock, and a tolerable beard) are perfectly revealed.

By sitting on the stage, you have a signed patent to engross the whole commodity of censure; may lawfully presume to be a girder; and stand at the helm to steer the of passage scenes; yet no man shall once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent, overweening coxcomb.

By sitting on the stage, you may (without travelling for it) at the very next door ask whose play it is: and, by that quest of inquiry, the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if you know not the author, you may rail against him and peradventure so behave yourself, that you may enforce the author to know you.

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By sitting on the stage, if you be a knight, you may happily get you a mistress: if a mere Fleet-street gentleman, a wife: but assure yourself, by continual residence, you are the first and principal man in election to begin the number of We Three.2

By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a justice in examining of plays, you shall put yourself into such true scenical authority, that some poet shall not dare to present his muse rudely upon your eyes, without having first unmasked her, rifled her, and discovered all her bare and most mystical parts before you at a tavern, when you most knightly shall, for his pains, pay for both their suppers.

By sitting on the stage, you may (with small cost) purchase the dear acquaintance of the boys: have a good stool for sixpence: at any time know what particular part any of the infants present: get your match lighted, examine the play-suits' lace, and perhaps win wagers upon laying 'tis copper, etc. And to conclude, whether you be a fool or a justice of peace, a cuckold, or a captain, a lord-mayor's son, or a dawcock, a knave, or an under-sheriff; of what stamp soever you be, current, or counterfeit, the stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect light and lay you open: neither are you to be hunted from thence, though the scarecrows in the yard hoot at you, hiss at you, spit at you, yea, throw dirt even in your teeth: 'tis most gentlemanlike patience to endure all this, and to laugh at the silly animals: but if the rabble, with a full throat, cry, "Away with the fool," you were worse than a madman to tarry by it for the gentleman and the fool should never sit on the stage together.

Marry, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest or rather, like a country serving-man, some five yards before them. Present not yourself on the stage (especially at a new play) until the quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got colour into his cheeks, and is ready to give the trumpets their cue, that he's upon point to enter: for then it is time, as though you were one of the properties, or that you dropped out of the hangings, to creep from behind the arras, with your tripos or threefooted stool in one hand, and a teston mounted between a forefinger and a thumb in the other: for if you should bestow your person upon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is but half

1 haply, by chance 2 A jest that still survives, a picture of two fools or asses with this inscription.

full, your apparel is quite eaten up, the fashion lost, and the proportion of your body in more danger to be devoured than if it were served up in the counter amongst the poultry: avoid that as you would the bastome. It shall crown you with rich commendation to laugh aloud in the midst of the most serious and saddest scene of the terriblest tragedy: and to let that clapper (your tongue) be tossed so high, that all the house may ring of it: your lords use it; your knights are apes to the lords, and do so too: your in-a-court-man is zany' to the knights, and (marry very scurvily) comes likewise limping after it: be thou a beagle to them all, and never lin3 snuffing, till you have scented them: for by talking and laughing (like a ploughman in a morris) you heap Pelion upon Ossa, glory upon glory: as first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the players, and only follow you: the simplest dolt in the house snatches up your name, and when he meets you in the streets, or that you fall into his hands in the middle of a watch, his word shall be taken for you: he'll cry "He's such a gallant," and you pass. Secondly, you publish your temperance to the world, in that you seem not to resort thither to taste vain pleasures with a hungry appetite: but only as a gentleman to spend a foolish hour or two, because you can do nothing else: thirdly, you mightily disrelish the audience, and disgrace the author: marry, you take up (though it be at the worst hand) a strong opinion of your own judgment, and enforce the poet to take pity of your weakness, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bring you into a better paradise, only to stop your mouth.

If you can (either for love or money), provide yourself a lodging by the water side: for, above the convenience it brings to shun shoulder-clapping, and to ship away your cockatrice betimes in the morning, it adds a kind of state unto you, to be carried from thence to the stairs of your play-house: hate a sculler (remember that) worse than to be acquainted with one o' th' scullery. No, your oars are your only sea-crabs, board them, and take heed you never go twice together with one pair: often shifting is a great credit to gentlemen; and that dividing of your fare will make the poor watersnakes be ready to pull you in pieces to enjoy your custom: no matter whether upon landing, you have money or no: you may swim in twenty of their boats over the river upon

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ticket: marry, when silver comes in, remember to pay treble their fare, and it will make your flounder-catchers to send more thanks after you, when you do not draw, than when you do; for they know, it will be their own another day.

Before the play begins, fall to cards: you may win or lose (as fencers do in a prize) and beat one another by confederacy, yet share the money when you meet at supper: notwithstanding, to gull the ragamuffins that stand aloof gaping at you, throw the cards (having first torn four or five of them) round about the stage, just upon the third sound,' as though you had lost it skills not if the four knaves lie on their backs, and outface the audience; there's none such fools as dare take exceptions at them, because, ere the play go off, better knaves than they will fall into the company.

Now, sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammed you, or hath had a flirt at your mistress, or hath brought either your feather, or your red beard, or your little legs, etc., on the stage, you shall disgrace him worse than by tossing him in a blanket, or giving him the bastinado in a tavern, if, in the middle of his play (be it pastoral or comedy, moral or tragedy), you rise with a screwed and discontented face from your stool to be gone: no matter whether the scenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distaste them: and, being on your feet, sneak not away like a coward, but salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spread either on the rushes, or on stools about you, and draw what troop you can from the stage after you: the mimics are beholden to you, for allowing them elbow room: their poet cries, perhaps, "a pox go with you," but care not for that, there's no music without frets.

Marry, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather bind you to sit it out, my counsel is then that you turn plain ape, take up a rush, and tickle the earnest ears of your fellow gallants, to make other fools fall a-laughing: mew at passionate speeches, blare at merry, find fault with the music, whew at the children's action, whistle at the songs: and above all, curse the sharers, that whereas the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embroidered felt and feather (Scotchfashion) for your mistress in the court, or your punk in the city, within two hours after, you encounter with the very same block on the

1i.e. for the play to begin 2 style of hat

stage, when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that morning.

To conclude, hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which your lean wit may most savourly feed, for want of other stuff, when the Arcadian and Euphuised gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set upon you: that quality (next to your shuttlecock) is the only furniture to a courtier that's but a new beginner, and is but in his A B C of compliment. The next places that are filled, after the playhouses be emptied, are (or ought to be) taverns: into a tavern then let us next march, where the brains of one hogshead must be beaten out to make up another.

CHAPTER VII

HOW A GALLANT SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF IN A TAVERN

Whosoever desires to be a man of good reckoning in the city, and (like your French lord) to have as many tables furnished as lackeys (who, when they keep least, keep none), whether he be a young quat' of the first year's revenue, or some austere and sullen-faced steward, who (in despite of a great beard, a satin suit, and a chain of gold wrapped in cypress) proclaims himself to any (but to those to whom his lord owes money) for a rank coxcomb, or whether he be a country gentleman, that brings his wife up to learn the fashion, see the tombs at Westminster, the lions in the Tower, or to take physic; or else is some young farmer, who many times makes his wife (in the country) believe he hath suits in law, because he will come up to his lechery: be he of what stamp he will that hath money in his purse, and a good conscience to spend it, my counsel is that he take his continual diet at a tavern, which (out of question) is the only rendez-vous of boon company; and the drawers the most nimble, the most bold, and most sudden proclaimers of your largest bounty.

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and your followers, your first compliment shall be to grow most inwardly acquainted with the drawers, to learn their names, as Jack, and Will, and Tom, to dive into their inclinations, as whether this fellow useth to the fencing school, this to the dancing school; whether that young conjurer (in hogsheads) at midnight keeps a gelding now and then to visit his cockatrice, or whether he love dogs, or be addicted to any other eminent and citizen-like quality: and protest yourself to be extremely in love, and that you spend much money in a year, upon any one of those exercises which you perceive is followed by them. The use which you shall make of this familiarity is this: if you want money five or six days together, you may still pay the reckoning with this most gentlemanlike language, "Boy, fetch me money from the bar," and keep yourself most providently from a hungry melancholy in your chamber. Besides, you shall be sure (if there be but one faucet that can betray neat wine to the bar) to have that arraigned before you, sooner than a better and worthier person.

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The first question you are to make (after the discharging of your pocket of tobacco and pipes, and the household stuff thereto belonging) shall be for an inventory of the kitchen: for it were more than most tailor-like, and to be suspected you were in league with some kitchen-wench, to descend yourself, to offend your stomach with the sight of the larder, and happily to grease your accoutrements. Having therefore received this bill, you shall (like a captain putting up dear pays) have many salads stand on your table, as it were for blanks to the other more serviceable dishes: and according to the time of the year, vary your fare, as capon is a stirring meat sometime, oysters are a swelling meat sometimes, trout a tickling meat sometimes, green goose and woodcock a delicate meat sometimes, especially in a tavern, where you shall sit in as great state as a church-warden amongst his poor parishioners, at Pentecost or Christmas.

For your drink, let not your physician confine you to any one particular liquor: for as it is requisite that a gentleman should not always be plodding in one art, but rather be a general scholar (that is, to have a lick at all sorts of learning, and away) so 'tis not fitting a man should trouble his head with sucking at one grape, but that he may be able (now there is a general peace) to drink any stranger drunk in

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his own element of drink, or more properly in his own mist language.

Your discourse at the table must be such as that which you utter at your ordinary: your behaviour the same, but somewhat more careless: for where your expense is great, let your modesty be less: and, though you should be mad in a tavern, the largeness of the items will bear with your incivility: you may, without prick to your conscience, set the want of your wit against the superfluity and sauciness of their reckonings.

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If you desire not to be haunted with fiddlers (who by the statute have as much liberty as rogues to travel into any place, having the passport of the house about them) bring then no women along with you: but if you love the company of all the drawers, never sup without your cockatrice: for, having her there, you shall be sure of most officious attendance. quire what gallants sup in the next room, and if they be any of your acquaintance, do not you (after the city fashion) send them in a pottle of wine, and your name, sweetened in two pitiful papers of sugar, with some filthy apology crammed into the mouth of a drawer; but rather keep a boy in fee, who underhand shall proclaim you in every room, what a gallant fellow you are, how much you spend yearly in taverns, what a great gamester, what custom you bring to the house, in what witty discourse you maintain a table, what gentlewomen or citizens' wives you can with a wet finger' have at any time to sup with you, and such like. By which encomiastics of his, they that know you shall admire you, and think themselves to be brought into a paradise but to be meanly in your acquaintance; and if any of your endeared friends be in the house, and beat the same ivy bush that yourself does, you may join companies and be drunk together most publicly.

But in such a deluge of drink, take heed that no man counterfeit himself drunk, to free his purse from the danger of the shot: 'tis a usual thing now among gentlemen; it had wont be the quality of cockneys: I would advise you to leave so much brains in your head as to prevent this. When the terrible reckoning (like an indictment) bids you hold up your hand, and that you must answer it at the bar, you must not abate one penny in any particular, no, though they reckon cheese to you, when you have neither eaten any, nor could ever abide it, raw or toasted: but cast your eye only upon

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the totalis, and no further; for to traverse the bill would betray you to be acquainted with the rates of the market, nay more, it would make the vintners believe you were pater familias, and kept a house; which, I assure you, is not now in fashion.

If you fall to dice after supper, let the drawers be as familiar with you as your barber, and venture their silver amongst you; no matter where they had it: you are to cherish the unthriftiness of such young tame pigeons, if you be a right gentleman: for when two are yoked together by the purse strings, and draw the chariot of Madam Prodigality, when one faints in the way and slips his horns, let the other rejoice and laugh at him.

At your departure forth the house, to kiss mine hostess over the bar, or to accept of the courtesy of the cellar when 'tis offered you by the drawers, and you must know that kindness never creeps upon them, but when they see you almost cleft to the shoulders, or to bid any of the vintners good night, is as commendable, as for a barber after trimming to lave your face with sweet water.

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To conclude, count it an honour, either to invite or be invited to any rifling: for commonly, though you find much satin there, yet you shall likewise find many citizens' sons, and heirs, and younger brothers there, who smell out such feasts more greedily than tailors hunt upon Sundays after weddings. And let any hook draw you either to a fencer's supper, or to a player's that acts such a part for a wager; for by this means you shall get experience, by being guilty to their abominable shaving.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW A GALLANT IS TO BEHAVE HIMSELF PASSING THROUGH THE CITY, AT ALL HOURS OF THE NIGHT, AND HOW TO PASS BY ANY WATCH

After the sound of pottle-pots is out of your ears, and that the spirit of wine and tobacco walks in your brain, the tavern door being shut upon your back, cast about to pass through the widest and goodliest streets in the city. And if your means cannot reach to the keeping of a boy, hire one of the drawers, to be as a lanthorne unto your feet, and to light you home: and, still as you approach near any nightwalker that is up as late as yourself curse and swear (like one that speaks High Dutch) in a

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lofty voice, because your men have used you so like a rascal in not waiting upon you, and vow the next morning to pull their blue cases over their ears, though, if your chamber were well searched, you give only sixpence a week to some old woman to make your bed, and that she is all the serving-creatures you give wages to. If you smell a watch (and that you may easily do, for commonly they eat onions to keep them in sleeping, which they account a medicine against cold) or, if you come within danger of their brown bills, let him that is your candlestick, and holds up your torch from dropping (for to march after a link is shoemaker-like), let Ignis Fatuus, I say, being within the reach of the constable's staff, ask aloud, "Sir Giles," or "Sir Abram, will you turn this way, or down that street?" It skills not, though there be none dubbed in your bunch; the watch will wink at you, only for the love they bear to arms and knighthood: marry, if the sentinel and his court of guard stand strictly upon his martial law and cry "Stand," commanding you to give the word, and to show reason why your ghost walks so late, do it in some jest (for that will show you have a desperate wit, and perhaps make him and his halberdiers afraid to lay foul hands upon you) or, if you read a millimus in the constable's book, counterfeit to be a Frenchman, a Dutchman, or any other nation whose country is in peace with your own; and you may pass the pikes: for being not able to understand you, they cannot by the customs of the city take your examination, and so by consequence they have nothing to say to you.

All the way as you pass (especially being approached near some of the gates) talk of none but lords, and such ladies with whom you have played at primero, or danced in the presence the very same day. It is a chance to lock up the lips of an inquisitive bell-man: and being arrived at your lodging door, which I would counsel you to choose in some rich citizen's house, salute at parting no man but by the name of Sir (as though you had supped with knights) albeit you had none in your company but your Perinado, or your ingle.

Happily it will be blown abroad, that you and your shoal of gallants swum through such an ocean of wine, that you danced so much money out at heels, and that in wild fowl there flew away thus much: and I assure you, to have the bill of your reckoning lost of purpose,

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