The Anatomy of Melancholy

And what the physician Lemnius said of his travels in England may be said generally of everyone: the common people were foolish, sullen, surly clowns, “but the gentry were gentler, most ready for every act of kindness”; the gentlemen were courteous and civil.

If such peasants happen to be advanced, as they often are, through their wealth, chance, mistake, or otherwise, still, like the cat in the fable who played with mice after being changed into a beautiful maiden, a cur will be a cur and a clown will be a clown. He will probably betray the stock he came from, and that inborn rusticity can scarcely be shaken off.

Though he struts proudly in his wealth, Fortune does not change his birth.

Although education may make such men more capable and refined, there are many signs by which they can probably be detected: an affected, fanciful manner, a tailor’s fussy smartness, a peculiar style in everything they do; more particular than others about their food. As Jerome aptly describes such a man to Nepotian: an upstart born in a lowly cottage, who at first scarcely had coarse bread to fill his hungry guts, must now feed on fancy delicacies and elaborate dishes, and have every variety of meat and fish, the finest oysters, and so on.

A beggar’s brat will commonly be more scornful, domineering, arrogant, and insolent than another man of his rank. Nothing is so intolerable as a prosperous fool, as Cicero discovered long ago from experience.

Nothing is harsher than a lowly man when he rises high,

Set a beggar on horseback, and he will go galloping, galloping, and so on.

He rages against everyone While he thinks he has the power; no beast is fiercer Than a slave’s fury raging against freeborn necks.

He forgets what he was, bullies others, and so on; and he has many other such signs by which you may distinguish him from a true gentleman. There are many errors and faults on both sides, noble and lowborn, among those made noble and those born so. Yet in every calling, as some degenerate, others deserve well and are most worthy of their honours.

As Busbequius said of Suleiman the Magnificent, he was “worthy of so great an empire”: worthy of that great empire. Many people of humble descent are most worthy of their honours, noble in public standing, and fully deserve them. Many of our hereditary nobles deserve to be princes, as someone said of Hephaestion, Ptolemy, Seleucus, Antigonus, and the rest of Alexander’s followers: they were all worthy to be monarchs and generals of armies.