The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works

by Thomas Nashe

  When life is my true happiness’ disease?

  My soul, my soul, thy safety makes me fly

  The faulty means, that might my pain appease.

  Divines and dying men may talk of hell,

  But in my heart her several torments dwell.

  Ah, worthless wit, to train me to this woe,

  Deceitful arts, that nourish discontent:

  Ill thrive the folly that bewitched me so;

  Vain thoughts, adieu, for now I will repent.

  And yet my wants persuade me to proceed,

  Since none takes pity of a scholar’s need.

  Forgive me, God, although I curse my birth,

  And ban18 the air, wherein I breathe a wretch;

  Since misery hath daunted all my mirth,

  And I am quite undone through promise-breach.

  Oh friends, no friends, that then ungently frown,

  When changing Fortune casts us headlong down.*

  Without redress complains my careless verse,

  And Midas-ears relent not at my moan;

  In some far land will I my griefs rehearse,

  ’Mongst them that will be mov’d when I shall groan.

  England, adieu, the soil that brought me forth;

  Adieu, unkind, where skill is nothing worth.

  These rhymes thus abruptly set down, I tossed my imaginations a thousand ways to see if I could find any means to relieve my estate; but all my thoughts consorted to this conclusion, that the world was uncharitable, and I ordained to be miserable. Thereby I grew to consider how many base men, that wanted those parts which I had, enjoyed content at will and had wealth at command. I called to mind a cobbler, that was worth five hundred pound; an hostler, that had built a goodly inn, and might dispend forty pound yearly by his land; a car-man in a leather pilch,20 that had whipped out a thousand pound out of his horse tail. ‘And have I more wit than all these?’ thought I to myself, ‘Am I better born? Am I better brought up? Yea, and better favoured?21 And yet am I a beggar? What is the cause? How am I crossed? Or whence is this curse?’

  Even from hence, that men that should employ such as I am, are enamoured of their own wits, and think whatever they do is excellent, though it be never so scurvy; that learning (of the ignorant) is rated after the value of the ink and paper, and a scrivener better paid for an obligation, than a scholar for the best poem he can make; that every gross-brained idiot is suffered to come into print, who if he set forth a pamphlet of the praise of pudding-pricks,22 or write a treatise of Tom Thumb or the exploits of Untruss,23 it is bought up thick and threefold, when better things lie dead.* How then can we choose but be needy, when there are so many drones amongst us, or ever prove rich, that toil a whole year for fair looks?

  Gentle Sir Philip Sidney, thou knewest what belonged to a scholar, thou knewest what pains, what toil, what travail, conduct to perfection; well couldst thou give every virtue his encouragement, every art his due, every writer his desert; cause none more virtuous, witty, or learned than thyself.

  But thou art dead in thy grave, and hast left too few successors of thy glory, too few to cherish the sons of the Muses or water those budding hopes with their plenty, which thy bounty erst planted.†

  Believe me, gentlemen (for some cross mishaps have taught me experience), there is not that strict observation of honour, which hath been heretofore. Men of great calling take it of merit to have their names eternized by poets; and whatsoever pamphlet or dedication encounters them, they put it up in their sleeves, and scarce give him thanks that presents it. Much better is it for those golden pens to raise such ungrateful peasants from the dunghill of obscurity, and make them equal in fame to the worthies of old, when their doting self-love shall challenge it of duty, and not only give them nothing themselves, but impoverish liberality in others.

  This is the lamentable condition of our times, that men of art must seek alms of cormorants, and those that deserve best be kept under by dunces, who count it a policy to keep them bare, because they should follow their books the better; thinking belike, that, as preferment hath made themselves idle, that were erst painful in meaner places, so it would likewise slacken the endeavours of those students that as yet strive to excel in hope of advancement. A good policy to suppress superfluous liberality! But had it been practised when they were promoted, the yeomanry of the realm had been better to pass than it is, and one drone should not have driven so many bees from their honeycombs.

  ‘Ay, ay, we’ll give losers leave to talk. It is no matter what Sic probo26 and his penniless companions prate, whilst we have the gold in our coffers. This is it that will make a knave an honest man, and my neighbour Crampton’s stripling a better gentleman than his grandsire.’ Oh, it is a trim thing when Pride, the son, goes before, and Shame, the father, follows after. Such precedents there are in our commonwealth a great many; not so much of them whom learning and industry hath exalted (whom I prefer before genus et proavos), 27 as of carterly upstarts, that out-face town and country in their velvets, when Sir Rowland Russet-coat,28 their dad, goes sagging every day in his round gaskins of white cotton, and hath much ado, poor penny-father, to keep his unthrift elbows in reparations.

  Marry, happy are they (say I) that have such fathers to work for them whilst they play; for where other men turn over many leaves to get bread and cheese in their old age, and study twenty years to distill gold out of ink, our young masters do nothing but devise how to spend, and ask counsel of the wine and capons how they may quickliest consume their patrimonies. As for me, I live secure from all such perturbations; for, thanks be to God, I am vacuus viator,29 and care not, though I meet the Commissioners of Newmarket Heath30 at high midnight, for any crosses,31 images, or pictures that I carry about me, more than needs.

  ‘Than needs,’ quoth I. Nay, I would be ashamed of it if Opus and Usus32 were not knocking at my door twenty times a week when I am not within; the more is the pity, that such a frank gentleman as I should want; but, since the dice do run so untowardly on my side, I am partly provided of a remedy. For whereas those that stand most on their honour have shut up their purses and shift us off with court-holy-bread;33 and on the other side, a number of hypocritical hotspurs, that have God always in their mouths, will give nothing for God’s sake; I have clapped up a handsome supplication to the devil and sent it by a good fellow, that I know will deliver it.

  And because you may believe me the better, I care not if I acquaint you with the circumstance.

  I was informed of late days, that a certain blind retailer, called the devil, used to lend money upon pawns or anything, and would let one for a need have a thousand pounds upon a statute merchant34 of his soul; or, if a man plied him thoroughly, would trust him upon a bill of his hand, without any more circumstance. Besides, he was noted for a privy benefactor to traitors and parasites, and to advance fools and asses far sooner than any; to be a greedy pursuer of news, and so famous a politician in purchasing, that hell, which at the beginning was but an obscure village, is now become a huge city, whereunto all countries are tributary.

  These manifest conjectures of plenty, assembled in one commonplace of ability,35 I determined to claw Avarice by the elbow, till his full belly gave me a full hand, and let him blood with my pen (if it might be) in the vein of liberality; and so, in short time, was this paper-monster, Pierce Penniless, begotten.

  But, written and all, here lies the question: where shall I find this old ass, that I may deliver it? Mass, that’s true; they say the lawyers have the devil and all; and it is like enough he is playing Ambodexter36 amongst them. Fie, fie, the devil a driver in Westminster Hall? It can never be.

  Now, I pray, what do you imagine him to be? Perhaps you think it is not possible he should be so grave. Oh, then you are in an error, for he is as formal as the best scrivener of them all. Marry, he doth not use to wear a nightcap, for his horns will not let him; and yet I know a hundred as well-headed as he, that will make a jolly shift with a court-cup37 on their crowns if the weath
er be cold.

  To proceed with my tale. To Westminster Hall I went, and made a search of enquiry, from the black gown to the buckram bag,38 if there were any such sergeant, bencher, counsellor, attorney, or pettifogger,39 as Signor Cornuto Diabolo40 with the good face. But they all, una voce, 41 affirmed that he was not there; marry, whether he were at the Exchange or no, amongst the rich merchants, that they could not tell; but it was likelier of the two that I should meet with him, or hear of him at the least, in those quarters. ‘I’faith, and say you so?’ quoth I, ‘and I’ll bestow a little labour more, but I’ll hunt him out.’

  Without more circumstance, thither came I; and, thrusting myself, as the manner is, amongst the confusion of languages, I asked, as before, whether he were there extant or no. But from one to another, ‘Non novi dæmonem’42 was all the answer I could get. At length, as fortune served, I lighted upon an old, straddling usurer, clad in a damask cassock, edged with fox fur, a pair of trunk slops,43 sagging down like a shoemaker’s wallet, and a short threadbare gown on his back, faced with moth-eaten budge;44 upon his head he wore a filthy, coarse biggin,45 and next it a garnish of night-caps, which a sage button-cap, of the form of a cowshard, overspread very orderly. A fat chuff it was, I remember, with a grey beard cut short to the stumps, as though it were grimed, and a huge worm-eaten nose, like a cluster of grapes hanging downwards. Of him I demanded if he could tell me any tidings of the party I sought for.

  ‘By my troth,’ quoth he, ‘stripling,’ and then he coughed, ‘I saw him not lately, nor know I certainly where he keeps: but thus much I heard by a broker, a friend of mine, that hath had some dealings with him in his time, that he is at home sick of the gout, and will not be spoken withal under more than thou art able to give, some two or three hundred angels, at least, if thou hast any suit to him; and then, perhaps, he’ll strain courtesy, with his legs in child-bed, and come forth and talk with thee; but, otherwise, non est domi,46 he is busy with Mammon, and the prince of the North, how to build up his kingdom, or sending his spirits abroad to undermine the maligners of his government.’

  I, hearing of this cold comfort, took my leave of him very faintly, and, like a careless malcontent that knew not which way to turn, retired me to Paul’s to seek my dinner with Duke Humphrey;47 but when I came there, the old soldier was not up. He is long a-rising, thought I, but that’s all one, for he that hath no money in his purse must go dine with Sir John Bestbetrust48 at the sign of the Chalk and the Post.49

  Two hungry turns had I scarce fetched in this waste gallery, when I was encountered by a neat, pedantical fellow, in form of a citizen, who, thrusting himself abruptly into my company, like an intelligencer,50 began very earnestly to question with me about the cause of my discontent, or what made me so sad, that seemed too young to be acquainted with sorrow. I, nothing nice51 to unfold my estate to any whatsoever, discoursed to him the whole circumstance of my care, and what toil and pains I had took in searching for him that would not be heard of.

  ‘Why, sir,’ quoth he, ‘had I been privy to your purpose before, I could have eased you of this travail; for if it be the devil you seek for, know I am his man.’

  ‘I pray, sir, how might I call you?’

  ‘A Knight of the Post,’ quoth he, ‘for so I am termed; a fellow that will swear you anything for twelve pence.* But, indeed, I am a spirit in nature and essence, that take upon me this human shape only to set men together by the ears and send souls by millions to hell.’

  ‘Now, trust me, a substantial trade; but when do you think you could send next to your master?’

  ‘Why, every day; for there is not a cormorant that dies, or cut-purse that is hanged, but I despatch letters by his soul to him and to all my friends in the Low Countries;53 wherefore, if you have anything that you would have transported, give it me, and I will see it delivered.’

  ‘Yes, marry have I,’ quoth I, ‘a certain supplication here unto your master, which you may peruse if it please you.’ With that he opened it, and read as followeth.

  To the high and mighty Prince of Darkness, donzel54 dell Lucifer, King of Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon, Duke of Tartary, Marquis of Cocytus, and Lord High Regent of Limbo; his distressed orator, Pierce Penniless, wisheth increase of damnation and malediction eternal, Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.55

  Most humbly sueth unto your sinfulness, your single-soled56 orator, Pierce Penniless; that whereas your impious excellence hath had the poor tenement of his purse any time this half year for your dancing school,57 and he, notwithstanding, hath received no penny nor cross58 for farm, according to the usual manner,* it may please your graceless majesty to consider of him, and give order to your servant Avarice he may be despatched; insomuch as no man here in London can have a dancing school without rent, and his wit and knavery cannot be maintained with nothing. Or, if this be not so plausible to your honourable infernalship, it might seem good to your hellhood to make extent upon the souls of a number of uncharitable cormorants, who, having incurred the danger of a præmunire59 with meddling with matters that properly concern your own person, deserve no longer to live as men amongst men, but to be incorporated in the society of devils. By which means the mighty controller of fortune and imperious subverter of destiny, delicious gold, the poor man’s god, and idol of princes, that looks pale and wan through long imprisonment, might at length be restored to his powerful monarchy, and eftsoon be set at liberty, to help his friends that have need of him.

  I know a great sort of good fellows that would venture far for his freedom,† and a number of needy lawyers, who now mourn in threadbare gowns for his thraldom, that would go near to poison his keepers with false Latin, if that might procure his enlargement; but inexorable iron detains him in the dungeon of the night, so that now, poor creature, he can neither traffic with the mercers and tailors, as he was wont, nor domineer in taverns as he ought.

  The Description of Greediness

  Famine, Lent, and Desolation sit in onion-skinned jackets before the door of his indurance,60 as a Chorus in The Tragedy of Hospitality, to tell Hunger and Poverty there’s no relief for them there. And in the inner part of this ugly habitation stands Greediness, prepared to devour all that enter, attired in a capouch61, of written parchment, buttoned down before with labels of wax, and lined with sheep’s fells62 for warmness; his cap furred with cats’ skins, after the Muscovy fashion, and all to-be-tasselled with angle-hooks,63 instead of aglets,64 ready to catch hold of all those to whom he shows any humbleness. For his breeches, they were made of the lists of broadcloths,65 which he had by letters patents assured him and his heirs, to the utter overthrow of bowcases66 and cushion makers; and bombasted67 they were, like beer barrels, with statute merchants68 and forfeitures.69 But of all, his shoes were the strangest, which, being nothing else but a couple of crab shells, were toothed at the toes with two sharp sixpenny nails that digged up every dunghill they came by for gold, and snarled at the stones as he went in the street, because they were so common for men, women, and children to tread upon, and he could not devise how to wrest an odd fine out of any of them.

  Thus walks he up and down all his lifetime, with an iron crow in his hand instead of a staff, and a sergeant’s mace70 in his mouth, which night and day he still gnaws upon, and either busies himself in setting silver lime twigs to entangle young gentlemen, and casting forth silken shraps71 to catch woodcocks,72 or in sieving of muckhills and shop dust, whereof he will bolt a whole cartload to gain a bowed pin.

  The Description of Dame Niggardize

  On the other side, Dame Niggardize, his wife, in a sedge rug73 kirtle, that had been a mat time out of mind, a coarse hempen rail about her shoulders, borrowed of the one end of a hop-bag, an apron made of almanacs out of date, such as stand upon screens, or on the backside of a door in a chandler’s shop, and an old wives’ pudding pan on her head, thrummed74 with the parings of her nails, sat barrelling up the droppings of her nose, instead of oil, to saim75 wool withal, and would not adventure to spit without
half-a-dozen porringers at her elbow.

  The house (or rather the hell) where these two earthworms encaptived this beautiful substance, was vast, large, strong built, and well furnished, all save the kitchen; for that was no bigger than the cook’s room in a ship, with a little court chimney,76 about the compass of a parenthesis in proclamation print; then judge you what diminutive dishes came out of this dove’s-nest. So likewise of the buttery; for whereas in houses of such stately foundation, that are built to outward show so magnificent, every office is answerable to the hall, which is principal, there the buttery was no more but a blind77 coalhouse under a pair of stairs, wherein, uprising and downlying, was but one single, single kilderkin78 of small beer, that would make a man, with a carouse of a spoonful, run through an alphabet of faces. Nor used they any glasses or cups, as other men, but only little farthing ounce boxes, whereof one of them filled up with froth, in manner and form of an ale-house, was a meal’s allowance for the whole household.

  It were lamentable to tell what misery the rats and mice endured in this hard world; how, when all supply of victuals failed them, they went a boot-haling79 one night to Signor Greediness’ bedchamber, where, finding nothing but emptiness and vastity, they encountered (after long inquisition) with a cod-piece, well dunged and manured with grease, which my pinch-fart penny-father had retained from his bachelorship, until the eating of these presents. Upon that they set, and with a courageous assault, rent it clean away from the breeches, and then carried it in triumph, like a coffin, on their shoulders betwixt them. The very spiders and dust-weavers, that wont to set up their looms in every window, decayed and undone through the extreme dearth of the place, that afforded them no matter to work on, were constrained to break,80 against their wills, and go dwell in the country, out of the reach of the broom and the wing;81 and generally, not a flea nor a cricket that carried any brave mind, that would stay there after he had once tasted the order of their fare. Only unfortunate gold, a predestinate slave to drudges and fools, lives in endless bondage there amongst them, and may no way be released, except you send the rot half a year amongst his keepers, and so make them away with a murrion,82 one after another.