In dividing the gains, he wrongs none who took pains to get them; not shifting off his poor mariners with nothing, or giving them only the garbage of the prize, and keeping all the flesh to himself. In time of peace, he quietly returns home, and turns not to the trade of pirates, who are the worst sea-vermin, and the devil's water-rats. His voyages are not only for profit, but some for honor and knowledge; to make discoveries of new countries, imitating the worthy Peter Columbus. Before his time the world was cut off at the middle, Hercules' Pillars (which indeed are the navel) being made the feet and utmost bounds of the continent, till his successful industry enlarged it. "Primus ab infusis quod terra emerserat undis Nuncius adveniens ipsa columba fuit. Our sea-captain is likewise ambitious to perfect what the other began. He counts it a disgrace, seeing all mankind is one family, sundry countries but several rooms, that we who dwell in the parlor (so he counts Europe) should not know the outlodgings of the same house, and the world be scarce acquainted with itself before it be dissolved from itself at the day of judgment. He daily sees and duly considers God's won ders in the deep. Tell me, ye naturalists, Who sounded the first march and retreat to the tide, "hither shalt thou come, and no further "? Why doth not the water recover his right over the earth, being higher in nature? Whence came the salt, and who first boiled it, which made so much brine? When the winds are not only wild in a storm, but even stark mad in a hurricane, who is it that restores them again to their wits, and brings them asleep in a calm ? Who made the mighty whales, who swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil swimming in them? Who first taught the waters to imitate the creatures on land? so that the sea is the stable of horse-fishes, the stall of kine-fishes, the sty of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and in all things the sea the ape of the land. Whence grows the ambergris in the sea? which is not so hard to find where it is as to know what it is. Was not God the first shipwright? and all vessels on the water descended from the loins (or ribs rather) of Noah's ark? Or else who durst be so bold, with a few crooked boards nailed together, a stick standing upright, and a rag tied to it, to adventure into the ocean? What loadstone first touched the loadstone? or how first fell it in love with the north, rather affecting that cold climate than the pleasant east, or fruitful south, or west? How comes that stone to know more than men, and find the way to the land in a mist? In most of these, men take sanctuary at occulta qualitas, and complain that the room is dark, when their eyes are blind. Indeed, they are God's wonders; and that seaman the greatest wonder of all for his blockishness, who, seeing them daily, neither takes notice of them, admires at them, nor is thankful for them. THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. WE will consider him in his birth, breeding, and behavior. He is extracted from ancient and worshipful parentage. When a pippin is planted on a pippin-stock, the fruit growing thence is called a renate, a most delicious apple, as both by sire and dam well descended. Thus his blood must needs be well purified who is gentilely born on both sides. If his birth be not, at least his qualities are generous. What if he cannot with the Hevenninghams of Suffolk count five-and-twenty knights of his family, or tell sixteen knights successively with the Tilneys of Norfolk, or with the Nauntons show where their ancestors had seven hundred pounds a year before or at the Conquest; yet he hath endeavored, by his own deserts, to ennoble himself. Thus valor makes him son to Cæsar, learning entitles him kinsman to Tully, and piety reports him nephew to godly Constantine. It graceth a gentleman of low descent and high desert, when he will own the meanness of his parentage. How ridiculous is it when many men brag that their families are more ancient than the moon, which all know are later than the star which some seventy years since shined in Cassiopea. But if he be generously born, see how his parents. breed him. He is not in his youth possessed with the great hopes of his possession. No flatterer reads constantly in his ears a survey of the lands he is to inherit. This hath made many boys' thoughts swell so great they could never be kept in compass afterwards. Only his parents acquaint him that he is the next undoubted heir to correction, if misbehaving himself; and he finds no more favor from his schoolmaster than his schoolmaster finds diligence in him, whose rod respects persons no more than bullets are partial in a battle. At the university he is so studious as if he intended learning for his profession. He knows well that cunning is no burden to carry, as paying neither portage by land nor poundage by sea. Yea, though to have land be a good first, yet to have learning is the surest second, which may stand to it when the other may chance to be taken away. At the inns of court he applies himself to learn the laws of the kingdom. Object not, "Why should a gentleman learn law, who, if he needeth it, may have it for his money, and if he hath never so much of his own, he must but give it away?" For what a shame is it for a man of quality to be ignorant of Solon in our Athens, of Lycurgus in our Sparta? Besides, law will help him to keep his own, and bestead his neighbors. Say not that there be enough which make this their set practice: for so there are also many masters of defence by their profession; and shall private men therefore learn no skill at their weapons? As for the hospitality, the apparel, the travelling, the company, the recreations, the marriage of gentlemen, they are described in several chapters in the following book. A word or two of his behavior in the country. He is courteous and affable to his neighbors. As the sword of the best tempered metal is most flexible, so the truly generous are most pliant and courteous in their behavior to their inferiors. He delights to see himself and his servants well mounted therefore he loveth good horsemanship. Let never any foreign Rabshakeh |