Aut qui vi & dolo eo fastigii non ascendunt, as that plebian in Machiavel in a set oration proved to his fellows, that do not rise by knavery, force, foolery, villany, or such indirect means. They are commonly able that are wealthy; vertue and riches seldome settle on one man: who then sees not the base beginning of nobility? spoiles enrich one, usury another, treason a third, witchcraft a fourth, flattery a fift, lying, stealing, bearing false witnesse a sixth, adultery the seventh, &c.

One makes a fool of himself to make his Lord merry, another dandles my yong master, bestowes a little nag on him, a third marries a crackt piece, &c. Now may it please your good worship, your lordship, who was the first founder of your family? The Poet answers,

Aut Pastor fuit, aut illud quod dicere nolo.

Are he or you the better gentleman? If he, then we have traced him to his form. If you, what is it of which thou boastest so much? That thou art his son. It may be his heir, his reputed son, and yet indeed a priest or a serving man may be the true father of him; but we will not controvert that now; married women are all honest; thou art his sons sons son, begotten & born infra quatuor maria, &c.

Thy great great great grandfather was a rich citizen, & then in all likelihood a usurer, a lawyer, & then a —— a courtier, & then a —— a country gentleman, and then he scraped it out of sheep, &c. And you are the heir of all his vertues, fortunes, titles; so then, what is your gentry, but as Hierom saith, Opes antiquæ, inveteratæ divitiæ, ancient wealth? that is the definition of gentility. The father goes often to the divel, to make his son a gentleman.

For the present, what is it? It began (saith Agrippa) with strong impiety, with tyranny, oppression, &c. and so it is maintained: wealth began it (no matter how got) wealth continueth and increaseth it. Those Roman knights were so called, if they could dispend per annum so much. In the kingdome of Naples and France, he that buyes such lands, buyes the honour, title, barony together with it; and they that can dispend so much amongst us, must be called to bear office, to be knights, or fine for it; as one observes, nobiliorem ex censu judicant, our Nobles are measured by their means.

And what now is the object of honor? What maintaines our gentry but wealth? Nobilitas sine re projectâ vilior algâ, Without means gentry is naught worth, nothing so contemptible and base. Disputare de nobilitate generis, sine divitiis, est disputare de nobilitate stercoris, saith Nevisanus the lawyer, to dispute of gentry without wealth, is (saving your reverence) to discusse the originall of a mard. So that it is wealth alone that denominates, money which maintaines it, gives esse to it, for which every man may have it.

And what is their ordinary exercise? sit to eat, drink, lie down to sleep, and rise to play: wherein lies their worth and sufficiency? in a few coats of armes, eagles, lions, serpents, bears, tygers, dogs, crosses, bends, fesses, &c. and such like babies, which they commonly set up in their galleries, porches, windowes, on boles, platters, coches, in tombs, churches, mens sleeves, &c.

If he can hawk and hunt, ride an horse, play at cards and dice, swagger, drink, swear, take tobacco with a grace, sing, dance, wear his clothes in fashion, court and please his mistris, talk big fustian, insult, scorn, strut, contemn others, and use a little mimical and apish complement above the rest, he is a compleat, (Egregiam verò laudem) a well qualified gentleman; these are most of their imployments, this their greatest commendation.

What is gentry, this parchment nobility then, but as Agrippa defines it, a sanctuary of knavery and naughtines, a cloke for wickednesse and execrable vices, of pride, fraud, contempt, boasting, oppression, dissimulation, lust, gluttony, malice, fornication, adultery, ignorance, impiety? A nobleman therefore in some likelihood, as he concludes, is an Atheist, an oppressor, an Epicure, a gull, a disard, an illiterate idiot, an outside, a gloworm, a proud fool, an arrant asse, Ventris & inguinis mancipium, a slave to his lust and belly, solaque libidine fortis.

And as Salvianus observed of his Countrymen the Aquitanes in France, sicut titulis primi fuere, sic & vitiis; & Cabinet du Roy, their own writer distinctly of the rest; The Nobles of Berry are most part leachers, they of Tourraine theeves, they of Narbone covetous, they of Guyenne coyners, they of Province Atheists, they of Rhemes superstitious, they of Lions treacherous, of Normandy proud, of Picardy insolent, &c. we may generally conclude, The greater men, the more vicious.

In fine, as Æneas Sylvius addes, they are most part miserable, sottish and filthy fellows, like the walls of their houses, fair without, foul within. What dost thou vaunt of now? What dost thou gape and wonder at? admire him for his brave apparell, horses, dogs, fine houses, manors, orchards, gardens, walks? Why? a fool may be possessor of this as well as he, and he that accounts him a better man, a Nobleman for having of it, he is a fool himself. Now go and brag of thy gentility.

This is it belike, which makes the Turkes at this day scorn nobility, and all those huffing bumbast titles, which so much elevate their poles: except it be such as have got it at first, maintain it by some supereminent quality, or excellent worth.