THE GULS HORN-BOOKE:
OR
Fashions to please all sorts of Guls.
Proœmium.
I sing (like the cuckooe in June) to bee laught at: if therefore I make a scuruy noise, and that my tunes sound vnmusically (the Ditty being altogether lame in respect of the bad feete, and vnhansome in regard of the worme-eaten fashion) you that haue authority vnder the broad seale of mouldy custom, to be called the gentle Audience, set your goodly great hands to my pardon: or else, because I scorne to be vpbraided that I professe to instruct others in an Art, whereof I my selfe am ignorant, Doe your worst: chuse whether you will let my notes haue you by the eares, or no: hisse or giue plaudities, I care not a nut-shell which of either: you can neither shake our Comick Theater with your stinking breath of hisses, nor raise it with the thunder-claps of your hands: vp it goes, in dispetto del fato. Ye motley is bought, and a coat with foure elbowes (for any one that will weare it) is put to making, in defiance of the seuen wise maisters: for I haue smelt out of the musty sheetes of an olde Almanacke, that (at one time or other) euen he that iets vpon the neatest and sprucest leather, euen he that talkes all Adage and Apothegme, euen he that will not haue a wrinckle in his new Sattein suit, though his mind be vglier then his face, and his face so illfauouredly made, that he lookes at all times as if a tooth-drawer were fumbling about his gommes with a / thousand lame Heteroclites more, that cozen the world with a guilt spur and a ruffled boote; will be all glad to fit themselues in Will Sommer his wardrob, and be driuen (like a Flemish Hoy in foule weather) to slip into our Schoole, and take out a lesson. Tush, Cœlum petimus stultitiâ, all that are chosen Constables for their wit go not to heauen.
A fig therefore for the new-found Colledge of Criticks. You Courtiers, that do nothing but sing the gamuth-a-re of complemental courtesie, and at the rusticall behauiour of our Countrie Muse, will screw forth worse faces then those which God and the Painter has bestowed vpon you, I defie your perfumd scorne: and vow to poyson your Muske cats, if their ciuet excrement doe but once play with my nose. You ordinary Gulles, that through a poore and silly ambition to be thought you inherit the reuenues of extraordinary wit, will spend your shallow censure vpon the most elaborate Poeme so lauishly, that all the painted table-men about you, take you to be heires apparent to rich Midasse, that had more skill in alchimy then Kelly with the Phylosophers stone; (for all that he could lay his fingers on, turned into beaten gold) dry Tobacco with my leaues (you good dry brained polipragmonists) till your pipe offices smoake with your pittifully stinking girds shot out against me. I coniure you (as you come of the right goose-caps) staine not your house; but when at a new play you take vp the twelue-penny roome next the stage; (because the Lords and you may seeme to be haile fellow wel-met) there draw forth this booke, read alowd, laugh alowd, and play the Antickes, that all the garlike mouthd stinkards may cry out, Away with the fool. As for thee, Zoylus, goe hang thy selfe: and for thee Momus, chew nothing but hemlock, and spit nothing but the sirrup of Aloes vpon my papers, till thy very rotten lungs come forth for anger. I am Snake-proofe: and, though, with Hanniball, you bring whole hogs-heads of vinegar-railings, it is impossible for you to quench or come ouer my Alpine-resolution: I will faile boldly and desperately alongst the shore of ye Ile of Guls; and in defiance of those terrible blockhouses, their loggerheads, make a true discouery of their wild (yet habitable) Country.
Sound an Allarum therefore (O thou my couragious Muse) and, like a Dutch cryer, make proclamation with thy Drum: the effect of thine O-yes being, That if any man, woman or child, be he Lord, be he Lowne, be he Courtier, be he Carter of ye Innes of Court, or Innes of Citty, that, hating from the bottome of his heart, all good manners and generous education, is really in loue, or rather doates on that excellent country lady, Innocent Simplicity, being the first, fairest, and chiefest Chamber-maide that our great grandame Eue entertained into seruice: Or if any person aforesaid, longing to make a voyage in the Ship of Fooles, would venture all the wit that his mother left him, to liue in the country of Guls, cockneyes, and coxcombs; to the intent that, haūting theaters, he may sit there, like a popiniay, onely to learne play-speeches, which afterward may furnish ye necessity of his bare knowledge, to maintaine table talke, or else, beating tauernes, desires to take the Bacchanalian degrees, and to write himselfe in arte bibendi magister; that at ordinaries would sit like Biasse, and in the streets walk like a braggart, that on foote longs to goe like a French Lacque, and on horsebacke rides like an English Tailor, or that from seuen yeares and vpward, till his dying day, has a monethes mind to haue ye Guls Hornebooke by hearte; by which in time he may be promoted to serue any Lord in Europe, as his crafty foole, or his bawdy Jester, yea and to be so deere to his Lordship, as for the excellency of his fooling, to be admitted both to ride in Coach with him, and to lie at his very feete on a truckle-bed. Let all such (and I hope the world has not left her olde fashions, but there are ten thousand such) repaire hither. Neuer knocke (you that striue to be Ninny-hammer), but with your feete spurne open the doore, and enter into our Schoole: you shall not neede to buy bookes, no, scorne to distinguish a B from a battle doore; onely looke that your eares be long enough to reach our Rudiments, and you are made for euer. It is by heart that I would haue you con my lessons, and therefore be sure to haue most deuouring stomaches. Nor be you terrified with an opinion, that our rules be hard and indigestible, or that you shall neuer be good Graduates in these rare sciences of Barbarisme, and Idiotisme. Oh fie, vppon any man that carries that vngodly minde! Tush, tush; Tarleton, Kemp, nor Singer, nor all the litter of Fooles that now come drawling behinde them, neuer played the clownes more naturally then the arrantest Sot of you all shall if hee will but boyle my Instructions in his braine-pan.
And lest I my selfe, like some pedantical Vicar stammering out a most false and crackt latine oration to maister Maior of the towne and his brethren, should cough and hem in my deliueries; by which meanes you (my Auditors) should be in danger to depart more like woodcockes then when you came to me: O thou venerable father of antient (and therefore hoary) customes, Syluanus, I inuoke thy assistance; thou that first taughtest Carters to weare hob-nailes, and Lobs to play Christmas gambols, and to shew the most beastly horse-trickes: O do thou, or (if thou art not at leasure) let thy Mountibancke, goat-footed Fauni, inspire me with the knowledge of all those silly and ridiculous fashions, which the old dunsticall world woare euen out at elbowes; draw for me the pictures of the most simple fellowes then liuing, that by their patterns I may paint the like. Awake thou noblest drunkerd Bacchus, thou must likewise stand to me (if at least thou canst for reeling), teach me (you soueraigne skinker) how to take the Germanies vpsy freeze, the Danish Rowsa, the Switzers stoap of Rhenish, the Italians Parmizant, the Englishmans healthes, his hoopes, cans, halfecans, Gloues, Frolicks, and flapdragons, together with the most notorious qualities of the truest tospots, as when to cast, when to quarrell, when to fight, and where to sleepe: hide not a drop of thy moist mystery from me (thou plumpest swil-bowle), but (like an honest red-nosed wine-bibber) lay open all thy secrets, and ye mystical Hieroglyphick of Rashers a' th' coales, Modicums and shooing-hornes, and why they were inuented, for what occupations, and when to be vsed. Thirdly (because I will haue more then two strings to my bow) Comus, thou Clarke of Gluttonies kitchen, doe thou also bid me proface, and let me not rise from table, till I am perfect in all the generall rules of Epicures and Cormorants. Fatten thou my braines, that I may feede others, and teach them both how to squat downe to their meat, and how to munch so like Loobies, that the wisest Solon in the world, shall not be able to take them for any other. If there be any strength in thee, thou beggerly Monarche of Indians, and setter-vp of rotten-lungd chimneysweepers (Tobacco), I beg it at thy smoaky hands: make me thine adopted heire, that, inheriting the vertues of thy whiffes, I may / distribute them amongst all nations, and make the phantastick Englishmen (aboue the rest) more cunning in the distinction of thy Rowle Trinidado, Leafe, and Pudding, then the whitest toothd Blackamoore in all Asia. After thy pipe, shal ten thousands be taught to daunce, if thou wilt but discouer to me the sweetnesse of thy snuffes, with the manner of spawling, slauering, spetting and driueling in all places, and before all persons. Oh what songs will I charme out, in praise of those valiantly-strong-stinking breaths, which are easily purchased at thy hands, if I can but get thee to trauell through my nose. All the foh's in the fairest Ladies mouth, that euer kist Lord, shall not fright me from thy browne presence: for thou art humble, and from the Courts of Princes hast vouchsafed to be acquainted with penny galleries, and (like a good-fellow) to be drunke for company, with Water-men, Carmen, and Colliers; whereas before, and so still, Knights and wise Gentlemen were, & are thy companions. Last of all, thou Lady of Clownes and Carters, Schoolmistres of fooles and wiseacres, thou homely (but harmelesse) Rusticity, Oh breath thy dull and dunsticall spirit into our ganders quill; crowne me thy Poet, not with a garland of Bayes (Oh no! the number of those that steale lawret is too monstrous already) but swaddle thou my browes with those unhansome boughes, which, (like Autums rotten haire), hang dangling ouer thy dusty eye-lids. Helpe me (thou midwife of vnmannerlinesse) to be deliuered of this Embryon that lies tumbling in my braine: direct me in this hard and dangerous voyage, that being safely arriued on the desired shore, I may build up Altars to thy Vnmatcheable Rudeness; the excellency whereof I know will be so great, that Grout-nowles and Moames will in swarmes fly buzzing about thee. So Herculean a labour is this, that I vndertake, that I am enforced to ball out for all your succours, to the intent I may aptly furnish this feast of Fooles, vnto which I solemnely inuite all the world; for at it shall sit not only those whom Fortune fauours, but euen those whose wits are naturally their owne. Yet because your artificiall fooles beare away the bell, all our best workmanship (at this time) shall be spent to fashion such a Creature.
The old world, & the new weighed together: the Tailors of those times, and these compared: the apparell, and dyet of our first fathers.