Familiar Colloquies/The False Knight
THE FALSE KNIGHT.
Harpalus and Nestor.
Ha. Can you help me out now with your advice 1 If you can, you shall find I am. neither forgetful nor ungrateful. Ne. I will bring it about that you shall be what you would be. Ha. But it is not in our own power to be born noblemen. Ne. If you are not a noble- man, strive by virtuous actions that yoiir nobility may derive its original from yourself. Ha. That is a long way about. Ne. Then the king will sell it you for a small matter. Ha. But nobility that is purchased with money is ridiculed by the vulgar. Ne. If nobility that is bought be so ridiculous a thing, why are yoxi so fond of being a knight 1 Ha. There are reasons for that, and no slight qnes neither, which I shall freely tell you, if you will but put me in the way of making myself honourable in the opinion of the vulgar. Ne. What signifies the name without the thing ? Ha. But as I have not the substance, I would have the reputation of it. But, my Nestor, give me your advice, and when you hear my reasons you will say it is worth my while. Ne. Well, since you will have it I will tell you : In the first place, remove yourself to a place where you are not known. Ha. Right. Ne. Then work yourself into the acquaintance of young men of quality. Ha. I take you in. Ne. First of all, by this means, people will be apt to judge of you by the company you keep. Ha. They will so. Ne. But then you must be sure to have nothing about you that is vulgar. Ha. As to what do you mean 1 Ne. I speak of your clothes, that they be not made of wool, but silk; but if you cannot go to the price of silk, rather fustian or canvass than cloth. Ha. You are in the right. Ne. And take care not to wear anything that is whole ; but cut your hat and your doublet, your hose and your shoes, and your nails too, if you can. Never talk of anything that is mean. If any traveller comes out of Spain, inquire of him how the king and the pope agree, how your cousin the Count of Nassau does, and all the rest of the officers your old jolly acquaintances. Ha. It shall be done. Ne. Wear a seal-ring upon your finger. Ha. That is if my pocket will speak. Ne. Then you may have a brass ring gilt with a doublet for a small matter; but then you must have your coat of arms upon it too. Ha. What bearing would you have me choose ? Ne. Why, if you will, two milk-pails and a pot of ale. Ha. You joke upon me ; but do tell me seriously. Ne. Were you ever in a battle 1 Ha. I never saw a battle. Ne. But I believe you have beheaded the farmers' geese and capons. Ha. Ay, many a time, and manfully too. Ne. Why, then, let your coat of arms be three goose heads or, and a whin- yard argent. Ha. What must the field be ? Ne. What should it be but gules'? a monument of blood shed plentifully. Ha. Ay, why not ? for the blood of a goose is as red as the blood of a man. But, pray, go on. Ne. Have this coat of arms hung over the gate of every inn you lodge at.
Ha. What shall be added to the helmet? Ne. That is well thought on ; make that with a mouth slit from ear to ear. Ha. What is your reason for that? Ne. First, to give you air, and then that it may be suitable to your dress. But what must the crest be 1 Ha. I want to know that. Ne. A dog's head with bangle ears. Ha. That is common. Ne. Then add two horns to it this is uncommon. Ha. I like that very well. But what beasts shall I have for sup- porters ? Ne. Why, as for bucks, and dogs, and dragons, and griffins, they have been all taken up already by princes; you shall have two harpies. Ha. Nothing can be better.
Ne. But then we want the title. In the first place, you must be sure to take care not to suffer yourself to be called Harpalus Comensis, but Harpalus a Como ; the one is noble, the other pedantic. Ha. It is so. Ne. Is there anything you can call yourself lord of? Ha. No, not so much as a hog's stye. Ne. Were you born in any famous city ? Ha. No, in a poor sorry village ; for a man must not lie when he asks counsel. Ne. That is very true; but is there never a moun- tain near that village ? Ha. There is. Ne. And is there any rock near that ? Ha. Yes, a very steep one. Ne. Why, then, you shall be Harpalus, the Knight of the Golden Rock. Ha. But most great men, I observe, have their peculiar mottoes, as Maximilian had, Keep within compass ; and Philip, He that will ; and Charles, Further yet ; some one thing and some another. Ne. Well, do you let yours be, Turn eveiy stone. Ha. Nothing more pertinent.
Ne. Now, to confirm the world in their esteem of you, you must counterfeit letters sent you from such and such great persons, in which you must frequently be styled the illustrious knight; and there must be mention made of great affairs, as of estates, castles, huge revenues, commands, great offices, rich matches; and you must contrive that these letters shall fall into people's hands, as being dropped by chance or for- gotten. Ha. That will be very easy to me; for I understand letters, and have so used myself to it, that I can counterfeit any man's hand so exactly that he shall not know it from his own. Ne. Either sew them into your garment or leave them iu your pocket, that when you send your clothes to the tailor to mend he may find them, and he will make no secret of it; and when you come to the knowledge of it, put an air of vexation and displeasure on your countenance, as if you were heartily vexed you were so careless as to leave them there. Ha. I have practised that so long that I can as easily change my countenance as I can my dress. Ne. By this means the deceit will not be dis- covered, and the matter will be blazed abroad. Ha. I will be sure to take great care of that.
Ne. Then you must furnish yourself with companions, or servants, who shall stand cap in hand to you, and call you my young lord at every turn. You need not be discouraged at the chai'ge; there are a great many young men who will act this part for nothing, or for the humour's sake. And besides, there are a great many scribbling blades in this country that are strangely infected with the itch (I was going to say the scab) of writing ; and there are hungry printers that will venture at anything, if there be but any hope of getting money. You must bribe some of these to give you in their pamphlets the title of a nobleman of your country, and let it be repeated every now and then in capital letters. Thus they will celebrate you a nobleman iu Bohemia; and one book spreads more than a hundred talkative tongues or prattling servants. Ha. I do not dislike this way neither; but there will be servants to be maintained. Ne. There will so ; but then you must not keep idle servants that have no hands, they will be unprofitable. You must send one one way, and another another, and so they will lay their fingers on something or other; they will have frequent opportunities of doing that. Ha* Say no more : I under- stand you.
Ne. And then there are other inventions. Ha. Pray, let me hear them. Ne. Unless you are an expert gamester at cards and dice, a rank whoremaster, a stout drinker, a daring extravagant, and under- stand the art of borrowing and bubbling, and have got the French pox to boot, scarce any one will believe you to be a knight. Ha. I have been trained up to these exercises. But where must I get the money 1 Ne. Hold, I was coming to that : have you any estate i Ha. A very little one. Ne. "Well, but when you are once settled in the reputation of a great man you will easily find fools that will give you credit; some will be ashamed, and others afraid to deny you; and there are a thousand ways to delude creditors. Ha. I am not un- acquainted with them. But they will be very pressing when they find nothing coming but words. Ne. Nay, on the contrary, no man has his creditors more at command than he that owes money to a great many. Ha. How so 1 Ne. First of all, your creditor pays you that observance as if he was the person obliged, and is afraid lest he should give any occasion of losing his money. No man has his servants so much in awe as the debtor his creditor; and if you ever pay them anything, it is more kindly taken than if you gave it them. Ha. I have found it so.
Ne. But you must take care not to deal with little people, for they will make a great noise for a small matter; those that have a more plentiful fortune are more easy to be appeased ; they will be restrained by modesty, led on by hope, or deterred by fear, for they know the danger of meddling with men of power. And last of all, when you are got over head and ears in debt, then upon one pretence or another remove your quarters first to one place and then to another ; and you need not be ashamed of that, for nobody is more in debt than great princes. If you find yourself pressed by a fellow of mean condition, make as if you were provoked by his confidence ; but make a small payment now and then, but never pay the whole sum, nor to all your creditors. But you must always take care that none ever come to know that you have an empty pocket; always make a show of money. Ha. But what can a man make a show of that has nothing? Ne. If any friend has given you anything to lay up for him, shew it as your own, but do it artfully, as if it were done by chance. And it will be good in this case to borrow money and shew it, though you pay it again presently. Pull a couple of guineas, that you have placed by them- selves, out of your pocket, from a whole pocketful of counters. You may imagine Ha. I understand you; but at last I must of necessity sink under my debts.
Ne. You know what knights can do with us. Ha. They do just what they please, and there is no redress. Ne. Let those servants you keep be such as are diligent ones, or some of your kindred, such as must be kept however. They will stumble now and then upon some merchant upon the way and rob him; they will find something in an inn, a house, or a boat that wants a keeper ; they will remember that a man's fingers were -not given him for nothing. Ha. Ay, if this could be done with safety. Ne. You must take care to keep them in handsome liveries, and be still sending them with counterfeit letters to this great man or the other. If they steal anything, although they should suspect them, nobody will dare to charge them with it, for fear of the knight their master. If they chance to take a booty by force, it is as good as a prize in war. Ha. Oh, brave counsel ! Ne. This maxim of knighthood is always to be maintained, that it is lawful for a knight upon the road to ease a common traveller of his money ; for what can be more dishonourable than for a pitiful tradesman to have money enough, and a knight at the same time wants it to spend upon his whores and at dice 1 Get as much as you can into the com- pany of great men, though you pin yourself upon them ; and that you may not be ashamed of anything, you must put on a brazen face, but especially to your host. And it will be best for you to live in some public place, as at the Bath, and at the most frequented inns. Ha. I was thinking of that,
Ne. In such places fortune will oftentimes throw some prey in the way. Ha. How, I beseech you ? Ne. Suppose one drops a purse, another leaves the key in the door of his storehouse, or so, you take me in. Ha. But Ne. What are you afraid of? Who will dare to suspect a person that goes as you do, talks great, the Knight of the Golden Rock ? If there shall happen to be any saucy fellow impudent enough to dare to suspect you, the suspicion will rather be cast upon somebody that went away the day before. There will be a disorder among the master and the servants, and do you behave yourself as a person wholly unconcerned. If this accident befals either a man of modesty or of brains, he will pass it over without making words of it, lest he lose his credit as well as his money for looking no better after it. Ha. That is very probable, for I suppose you know the Count of the White Vulture. Ne. Why not ? Ha. I have heard of a certain Spaniard, a handsome genteel fellow, that lodged at his house; he carried away a matter of six hundred florins, behaving himself with that state that the count never dared to open his mouth against him. Ne. You have a precedent, then. You may now and then send out a servant for a soldier, and he, having rifled churches and monas- teries, will return laden with the plunder that he has got by the law of arms. Ha. This is the safest expedient that we have had yet. Ne. There is yet another way of getting money. Ha. Pray, let me hear what that is. Ne. Pick a quarrel with those that have a good deal of money, especially with monks or priests, for the people generally look very invidiously upon them now-a-days viz., one broke a jest upon you, another spit upon your escutcheon, another spoke dishonourably of you ; one or the other wrote something that might be interpreted scandalous. Send your heralds to declare an irreconcilable war. Breathe nothing but destruction and ruin, and they, being terrified, will come to you to make it up. Then see that you set a great price upon your dignity ; and that is, you must ask out of reason for your bearing that which is reasonable. If you make a demand of three thousand guineas, they will be ashamed to offer you less than two hundred. Ha. And I will threaten others with the law. Ne. That is more like a sycophant ; but yet it may help in some degree.
But, hark you, Harpalus, I had almost forgot what I should have mentioned first. Some young wench with a good fortune is to be drawn into the noose of matrimony; you have charms in yourself, you are young and handsome, you are a beau, and have a pretty smiling countenance; give it out that you are called away to some great office in the emperor's court. Girls are fond of marrying nobility. Ha. I know some that have made their fortunes this way. But what if the cheat should be discovered, and all my creditors should fall upon me at once 1 Then I, the sham knight, shall become a laughing-stock ; for creditors hate this sort of tricking worse than they do robbing of churches. Ne. Why, in this case you must remember to put on a brazen face, and that impudence never passed so current for wisdom as it does now-a-days. You must betake yourself to invention for some excuse, and you will always find some easy people that will favour it, and some so civil that if they perceive the fallacy they will not discover it. And last of all, if you can do nothing else you must shew them a pair of heels, and run into the army or a riot ; for as the sea hides all mischief, so war hides all sins. And now-a-days he that has not been, trained up in this school is not looked upon fit to be a commander. This must be your last shift, when everything else fails you j but you must turn every stone before you come to it.
Take care that you are not ruined by being bound for other men. Shun little towns that a man cannot let a fart in but the people must know it. In great and populous cities a man may take more liberty, unless it be in such a place as Marseilles. Make it your business to know what people say of you ; and when you hear the people begin to talk at this rate, What does this man do here so long 1 why does he not go home and look after his castles 1 whence does he take his pedigree ? whence does he get money to live so extravagantly 1 when yon find that such talk* as this grows rife among the people, it is time for you to think of packing up your awls and be jogging in good time ; but make your retreat like a lion, and not like a hare. Pretend you are called away by the emperor to some great employment, and that you shall return in a short time at the head of an army. Those that have anything they are not willing to lose will not dare to open their mouths against you when you are gone.
But above all, I advise you to have a care of that peevish, malicious set of men called poets. If anything displeases them they will envenom their papers, and the venom of them will be of a sudden diffused all the world over. Ha. Let me die if I am not wonderfully pleased with your counsel, and I will make it my business to let you see that you have got a docible scholar, and a youth that is not ungrateful ; the first good horse that I shall get into my pasture that is equal to your deserts I will present you with. Ne. Well, all that remains is that you be as good as your word. But what is the reason that you shoiild be so fond of a false opinion of nobility 1 Ha. For no other reason but that they are in a manner lawless, and do what they please. And do you think this a matter of small moment 1 Ne. If the worst come that can come, death is owing to nature, although you lived a Carthu- sian; and it is an easier death to be broken on the wheel than to die of the stone, the gout, or the palsy ; for it is like a soldier to believe that after death there remains nothing of a man but his carcase. Ha. And I am of that opinion.