THE HOLY THE THIRD BOOK. CHAPTER I. OF HOSPITALITY. HOSPITALITY is threefold:-for one's family, this is of necessity; for strangers, this is courtesy; for the poor, this is charity. Of the two latter : MAXIM I. To keep a disorderly house is the way to keep neither house nor lands. For whilst they keep the greatest roaring, their state steals away in the greatest silence. Yet when many consume themselves with secret vices, then hospitality bears the blame; whereas it is not the meat but the sauce, not the supper but the gaming after it, doth undo them. II. Measure not thy entertainment of a guest by HIS estate, but THINE OWN. Because he is a lord, forget not that thou art but a gentleman; otherwise, if with feasting him thou breakest thyself, he will not cure thy rupture, and (perchance) rather deride than pity thee. III. When provision, as we say, groweth on the same, it is miraculously multiplied.-In Northamptonshire all the rivers of the county are bred in it, besides those (Ouse and Cherwell) it lendeth and sendeth into other shires: so the good housekeeper hath a fountain of wheat in his field, mutton in his fold, &c., both to serve himself, and supply others. The expense of a feast will but breathe him, which will tire another of the same estate who buys all by the penny. IV. Mean men's palates are best pleased with fare rather plentiful than various, solid than dainty.-Dainties will cost more, and content less, to those that are not critical enough to distinguish them. V. Occasional entertainment of men greater than thyself, is better than solemn inviting them.-Then short warning is thy large excuse; whereas, otherwise, if thou dost not over-do thy estate, thou shalt under-do his expectation; for thy feast will be but his ordinary fare. A king of France was often pleased, in his hunting, wilfully to lose himself, to find the house of a private park-keeper; where, going from the school of state-affairs, he was pleased to make a play-day to himself. He brought sauce (hunger) with him, which made coarse meat dainties to his palate. At last the park-keeper took heart, and solemnly invited the king to his house; who came with all his court, so that all the man's meat was not a morsel for them. "Well," said the park-keeper, "I will invite no more kings;" having learnt the difference between princes when they please to put on the vizard of privacy, and when they will appear like themselves, both in their person and attendants. VI. Those are ripe for charity who are withered by age or impotency.-Especially if maimed in following their calling; for, such are industry's Martyrs, at least her Confessors. Add to these, those that with diligence fight against poverty, though neither conquer till death make it a drawn battle. Expect not, but prevent, their craving of thee; for God forbid the heavens should never rain till the earth first opens her mouth, seeing some grounds will sooner burn than chap! VII. The House of Correction is the fittest Hospital for those cripples whose legs are lame through their own laziness.—Surely, king Edward VI. was as truly charitable in granting Bridewell for the punishment of sturdy rogues, as in giving St. Thomas's Hospital for the relief of the poor. I have done with the subject; only I desire rich men to awaken hospitality, which, one saith, "since the year 1572, hath in a manner been laid asleep in the grave of Edward earl of Derby."* • CAMDEN'S "Elizabeth," anno 1573. CHAPTER II. OF JESTING. HARMLESS mirth is the best cordial against the consumption of the spirits; wherefore jesting is not unlawful if it trespasseth not in quantity, quality, or season. MAXIM I. It is good to make a jest, but not to make a trade of jesting.— The earl of Leicester, knowing that queen Elizabeth was much delighted to see a gentleman dance well, brought the master of a dancing-school to dance before her. "Pish!" said the queen, "it is his profession: I will not see him." She liked it not where it was a master-quality, but where it attended on other perfections. The same may we say of jesting. II. Jest not with the two-edged sword of God's word.*-Will nothing please thee to wash thy hands in, but the font? or to drink healths in, but the church-chalice? And know, the whole art is learnt at the first admission, and profane jests will come without calling. If, in the troublesome days of king Edward IV., a citizen in Cheapside was executed as a traitor, for saying he would make his son heir to the crown, though he only meant his own house, having a crown for the sign; † more dangerous it is to wit-wanton it with the majesty of God. Wherefore, if without thine intention, and against thy will, by chance-medley thou hittest Scripture in ordinary discourse, yet fly to the city of refuge, and pray to God to forgive thee. III. Wanton jests make fools laugh, and wise men frown.-Seeing we are civilized Englishmen, let us not be naked savages in our talk. Such rotten speeches are worst in withered age, when men run after that sin in their words which flieth from them in the deed. IV. Let not thy jests, like mummy, be made of dead men's flesh.— Abuse not any that are departed; for, to wrong their memories, is to rob their ghosts of their winding-sheets. V. Scoff not at the natural defects of any, which are not in their power to amend.-O, it is cruelty to beat a cripple with his own crutches! Neither flout any for his profession, if honest, though poor and painful. Mock not a cobbler for his black thumbs. VI. He that relates another man's wicked jest with delight, adopts it to be his own.-Purge them, therefore, from their poison. If the profaneness may be severed from the wit, it is like a lamprey take out the string * in the back, it may make good meat. But if the staple-conceit consists in profaneness, then it is a viper, all poison, and meddle not with it. VII. He that will lose his friend for a jest, deserves to die a beggar by the bargain.-Yet some think their conccits, like mustard, not good except they bite. We read, that all those who were born in England, the year after the beginning of the great mortality 1349,† wanted their four check-teeth. Such let thy jests be, that they may not grind the credit of thy friend, and make not jests so long till thou becomest one. VIII. No time to break jests when the heart-strings are about to be broken.-No more showing of wit when the head is to be cut off. Like that dying man who, when the priest, coming to him to give him extreme unction, asked of him where his feet were, answered, “At the end of my legs." But, at such a time, jests are an unmannerly crepitus ingenii; and let those take heed who end here with Democritus, that they begin not with Heraclitus hereafter. In the third edition "sting" occurs.-EDIT. + THOMAS WALSINGHAM, in eodem anno. "Crackling of a flashy genius."-EDIT. CHAPTER III. OF SELF-PRAISING. MAXIM I. HE whose own worth doth speak, need not speak his own worth. -Such boasting sounds proceed from emptiness of desert: whereas the conquerors in the Olympian games did not put on the laurels on their own heads, but waited till some other did it. Only anchorets, that want company, may crown themselves with their own commendations. II. It showeth more wit, but no less vanity, to commend one's self, not in a straight line, but by reflexion.-Some sail to the port of their own praise by a side-wind: as when they dispraise themselves, stripping themselves naked of what is their due, that the modesty of the beholders may clothe them with it again; or, when they flatter another to his face, tossing the ball to him, that he may throw it back again to them; or when they commend that quality, wherein themselves excel, in another man, (though absent,) whom all know far their inferior in that faculty; or, lastly, (to omit other ambushes men set to surprise praise,) when they send the children of their own brain to be nursed by another man, and commend their own works in a third person; but, if challenged by the company that they were authors of them themselves, with their tongues they faintly deny it, and with their faces strongly affirm it. III. Self-praising comes most naturally from a man when it comes most violently from him in his own defence.-For though modesty binds a man's tongue to the peace in this point, yet, being assaulted in his credit, he may stand upon his guard, and then he doth not so much praise as purge himself. One braved a gentleman to his face, that in skill and valour he came far behind him. "It is true," said the other, "for when I fought |