a play-book, or some pamphlet of
news, and that at such seasons only, when they cannot stir abroad, to drive
away time, [2074]their sole discourse is dogs, hawks, horses, and what
news? If some one have been a traveller in Italy, or as far as the
emperor's court, wintered in Orleans, and can court his mistress in broken
French, wear his clothes neatly in the newest fashion, sing some choice
outlandish tunes, discourse of lords, ladies, towns, palaces, and cities,
he is complete and to be admired: [2075]otherwise he and they are much at
one; no difference between the master and the man, but worshipful titles;
wink and choose betwixt him that sits down (clothes excepted) and him that
holds the trencher behind him: yet these men must be our patrons, our
governors too sometimes, statesmen, magistrates, noble, great, and wise by
inheritance.

Mistake me not (I say again) _Vos o Patritius sanguis_, you that are worthy
senators, gentlemen, I honour your names and persons, and with all
submissiveness, prostrate myself to your censure and service. There are
amongst you, I do ingenuously confess, many well-deserving patrons, and
true patriots, of my knowledge, besides many hundreds which I never saw, no
doubt, or heard of, pillars of our commonwealth, [2076]whose worth, bounty,
learning, forwardness, true zeal in religion, and good esteem of all
scholars, ought to be consecrated to all posterity; but of your rank, there
are a debauched, corrupt, covetous, illiterate crew again, no better than
stocks, _merum pecus (testor Deum, non mihi videri dignos ingenui hominis
appellatione)_ barbarous Thracians, _et quis ille thrax qui hoc neget_? a
sordid, profane, pernicious company, irreligious, impudent and stupid, I
know not what epithets to give them, enemies to learning, confounders of
the church, and the ruin of a commonwealth; patrons they are by right of
inheritance, and put in trust freely to dispose of such livings to the
church's good; but (hard taskmasters they prove) they take away their
straw, and compel them to make their number of brick: they commonly respect
their own ends, commodity is the steer of all their actions, and him they
present in conclusion, as a man of greatest gifts, that will give most; no
penny, [2077]no paternoster, as the saying is. _Nisi preces auro fulcias,
amplius irritas: ut Cerberus offa_, their attendants and officers must be
bribed, feed, and made, as Cerberus is with a sop by him that goes to hell.