Act. III. Scene. I.
Gvilt-head. Plvtarchvs.
All this is to make you a Gentleman: I’ll haue you learne, Sonne. Wherefore haue I plac’d you With Sr. Poul Either-ſide, but to haue ſo much Law To keepe your owne? Beſides, he is a Iuſtice, Here i’ the Towne; and dwelling, Sonne, with him, 5 You ſhal learne that in a yeere, ſhall be worth twenty Of hauing ſtay’d you at Oxford, or at Cambridge, Or ſending you to the Innes of Court, or France. I am call’d for now in haſte, by Maſter Meere-craft To truſt Maſter Fitz-dottrel, a good man: 10 I’haue inquir’d him, eighteene hundred a yeere, (His name is currant) for a diamant ring Of forty, ſhall not be worth thirty (thats gain’d) And this is to make you a Gentleman!
Plv. O, but good father, you truſt too much!
Gvi. Boy, boy, 15 We liue, by finding fooles out, to be truſted. Our ſhop-bookes are our paſtures, our corn-grounds, We lay ’hem op’n for them to come into: And when wee haue ’hem there, wee driue ’hem vp In t’one of our two Pounds, the Compters, ſtreight, 20 And this is to make you a Gentleman! Wee Citizens neuer truſt, but wee doe coozen: For, if our debtors pay, wee coozen them; And if they doe not, then we coozen our ſelues. But that’s a hazard euery one muſt runne, 25 That hopes to make his Sonne a Gentleman!
Plv. I doe not wiſh to be one, truely, Father. In a deſcent, or two, wee come to be Iuſt ’itheir ſtate, fit to be coozend, like ’hem. And I had rather ha’ tarryed i’ your trade: 30 For, ſince the Gentry ſcorne the Citty ſo much, [130] Me thinkes we ſhould in time, holding together, And matching in our owne tribes, as they ſay, Haue got an Act of Common Councell, for it, That we might coozen them out of rerum natura. 35
Gvi. I, if we had an Act firſt to forbid The marrying of our wealthy heyres vnto ’hem: And daughters, with ſuch lauiſh portions. That confounds all.