set the house on fire where he was born,
because no body should point at it. Others buy titles, coats of arms, and
by all means screw themselves into ancient families, falsifying pedigrees,
usurping scutcheons, and all because they would not seem to be base. The
reason is, for that this gentility is so much admired by a company of
outsides, and such honour attributed unto it, as amongst [3629]Germans,
Frenchmen, and Venetians, the gentry scorn the commonalty, and will not
suffer them to match with them; they depress, and make them as so many
asses, to carry burdens. In our ordinary talk and fallings out, the most
opprobrious and scurrile name we can fasten upon a man, or first give, is
to call him base rogue, beggarly rascal, and the like: Whereas in my
judgment, this ought of all other grievances to trouble men least. Of all
vanities and fopperies, to brag of gentility is the greatest; for what is
it they crack so much of, and challenge such superiority, as if they were
demigods? Birth? _Tantane vos generis tenuit fiducia vestri_? [3630]It is
_non ens_, a mere flash, a ceremony, a toy, a thing of nought. Consider the
beginning, present estate, progress, ending of gentry, and then tell me
what it is. [3631]"Oppression, fraud, cozening, usury, knavery, bawdry,
murder, and tyranny, are the beginning of many ancient families:"
[3632]"one hath been a bloodsucker, a parricide, the death of many a silly
soul in some unjust quarrels, seditions, made many an orphan and poor
widow, and for that he is made a lord or an earl, and his posterity
gentlemen for ever after. Another hath been a bawd, a pander to some great
men, a parasite, a slave," [3633]"prostituted himself, his wife, daughter,"
to some lascivious prince, and for that he is exalted. Tiberius preferred
many to honours in his time, because they were famous whoremasters and
sturdy drinkers; many come into this parchment-row (so [3634]one calls it)
by flattery or cozening; search your old families, and you shall scarce
find of a multitude (as Aeneas Sylvius observes) _qui sceleratum non habent
ortum_, that have not a wicked beginning; _aut qui vi et dolo eo fastigii
non ascendunt_, as that plebeian in [3635]Machiavel in a set oration proved
to his fellows, that do not rise by knavery, force, foolery, villainy, or
such indirect means. "They are commonly able that are wealthy; virtue and
riches seldom settle on one man: who then sees not the beginning of
nobility? spoils enri