A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN

Is a thing, out of whose corruption the generation of a Justice of Peace is produced.  He speaks statutes and husbandry well enough to make his neighbours think him a wise man; he is well skilled in arithmetic or rates, and hath eloquence enough to save twopence.  His conversation amongst his tenants is desperate, but amongst his equals full of doubt.  His travel is seldom farther than the next market town, and his inquisition is about the price of corn.  When he travelleth he will go ten miles out of the way to a cousin’s house of his to save charges; he rewards the servant by taking him by the hand when he departs.  Nothing under a subpoena can draw him to London; and when he is there he sticks fast upon every object, casts his eyes away upon gazing, and becomes the prey of every cutpurse.  When he comes home, those wonders serve him for his holiday talk.  If he go to court it is in yellow stockings; and if it be in winter, in a slight taffety cloak, and pumps and pantofles.  He is chained that woos the usher for his coming into the presence, where he becomes troublesome with the ill-managing of his rapier, and the wearing of his girdle of one fashion, and the hangers of another.  By this time he hath learned to kiss his hand, and make a leg both together, and the names of lords and councillors.  He hath thus much toward entertainment and courtesy, but of the last he makes more use, for, by the recital of my lord, he conjures his poor countrymen.  But this is not his element; he must home again, being like a dor, that ends his flight in a dunghill.

A FINE GENTLEMAN

Is the cinnamon tree, whose bark is more worth than his body.  He hath read the book of good manners, and by this time each of his limbs may read it.  He alloweth of no judge but the eye:  painting, bolstering, and bombasting are his orators.  By these also he proves his industry, for he hath purchased legs, hair, beauty, and straightness, more than nature left him.  He unlocks maidenheads with his language, and speaks Euphues, not so gracefully as heartily.  His discourse makes not his behaviour; but he buys it at court, as countrymen their clothes in Birchin Lane.  He is somewhat like the salamander, and lives in the flame of love, which pains he expresseth comically.  And nothing grieves him so much as the want of a poet to make an issue in his love.  Yet he sighs sweetly and speaks lamentably, for his breath is perfumed and his words are wind.  He is best in season at Christmas, for the boar’s head and reveller come together.  His hopes are laden in his quality; and, lest fiddlers should take him unprovided, he wears pumps in his pocket; and, lest he should take fiddlers unprovided, he whistles his own galliard.  He is a calendar of ten years, and marriage rusts him.  Afterwards he maintains himself an implement of household, by carving and ushering.  For all this, he is judicial only in tailors and barbers; but his opinion is ever ready, and ever idle.  If you will know more of his acts, the broker’s shop is the witness of his valour, where lies wounded, dead rent, and out of fashion, many a spruce suit, overthrown by his fantasticness.