CHAP. 4. How a Gallant should behave himself in Paul's Walks.

CHAP. 5. How a Gallant should behave himself in an Ordinary.

CHAP. 6. How a Gallant should behave himself in a Playhouse.

CHAP. 7. How a Gallant should behave himself in a Tavern.

CHAP. 8. How a Gallant is to behave himself passing through the City, at all Hours of the Night; and how to pass by any Watch.

GULL'S HORN BOOK,

OR

FASHIONS TO PLEASE ALL SORTS OF GULLS.

Proœmium.

SING, like the cuckoo in June,. to be laughed at. If therefore I make a scurvy noise, and that my tunes sound unmusically; the ditty being altogether lame in respect of the bad feet, and unhandsome in regard of the wormeaten fashion; you that have authority under the broad seal of mouldy custom to be

1 I sing, like the cuckoo in June.] From this exordium, it would

called

called the "gentle audience," set your goodly great hands to my pardon or else, because I scorn to be upbraided that I profess to instruct others in an art, whereof I myself am ignorant, do your worst; chuse whether you will let my notes have you by the ears, or no; hiss, or give plaudites; I care not a nutshell which of either you can neither shake our comick theatre with your stinking breath of hisses, nor raise it with the thunderclaps of

your hands: up it goes, in dispetto del futo. "The motley

seem that Decker's tract came out in the month of June, perhaps at the beginning of Trinity term,

"Hoarse as a cuckoo in June" occurs in Queenhoo Hall, Vol. 1, Page 80; that whimsical modern medley of antiquated ingredients, compounded by the late ingenious Joseph Strutt. He might have had Decker in view, when he penned the phrase. The cuckoo, just previous to its departure hence, which is correctly the first week in July, is said to acquire a more harsh and discordant note. This bird renews its visit to us, as correctly, in the middle of April.

Again, in the Sun's Darling, A. 4, S. 1, a masque in which Decker joined with John Ford, we have: "I was born a cuckoo in "the spring, and lost my voice in summer, with laying my eggs in a "sparrow's nest."

2 the motley is bought, and a coat with four elbows.] The motley was the usual fool's coat of many colours; or perhaps rather his surtout, or cloak, from the following passage in Shakspeare;

"Or to see a fellow

"In a long motley coat, guarded with yellow,

"Will be deceived."

Prologue to HENRY 8

is

is bought; and a coat with four elbows, for any one that will wear it, is put to making, 'in defiance of the seven wise masters. For I have smelt out of the musty sheets of an old almanack, that, at one time or other, even he that 'jets upon the neatest and sprucest leather; even he that talks all adage and apothegm; even he that will not have a wrinkle in his new satin suit, though his mind be uglier than his face, and his face so illfavouredly made, that he looks at all times as if a toothdrawer were fumbling (B) (2) about his gums; with a¶ thousand lame heteroclites more, that cozen the world with a gilt spur and a ruffled boot;

The coat with four elbows I take to be the close doublet we see our fools wear on the stage at present, in old plays, with an extra pair of sleeves hanging loose behind, consequently having four elbows.

3 in defiance of the seven wise mästers.] Those celebrated Grecian sages, here alluded to, must be familiar to most readers; they were Solon, Chilo, Pittacus, Bias, Periander, Cleobulus, and Thales.

*jets upon the neatest and sprucest leather.] Steps upon, treads haughtily. Thus Shakspeare: "Contemplation makes a rare turkey"cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes!" Twelfth Night, A. 2, S. 5.

5 a ruffled boot.] A boot with a large turn-down top, hanging low and loose about the leg, as was then the fashion. Thus Ben Jonson, Every man out of his Humour, A. 4, S. 6: "One of the "rowels (of my silver spurs) catched hold of the ruffle of my boot, which, being Spanish leather, and subject to tear, overthrows me."

will be all glad to fit themselves in 'Will Sommer his wardrobe, and be driven, like a Flemish hoy in foul weather, to slip into our school, and take out a lesson. Tush! Calum petimus sultitiâ. All that are chosen constables for their wit go not to heaven.

6

to fit themselves in Will Sommer his wardrobe.] That is, in the motley, or fool's dress, the habit of Will Sommer, or Sommers, who was proverbially a buffoon, having been, some seventy years before the date of this tract, jester to K. Henry 8. Holbein painted him in a long tunic, of which portrait there is a very rare print by Francis Delaram and he has likewise introduced him in that fine picture of Henry, and some of his family, which now decorates the meetingroom of the Society of Antiquaries; a monkey is there clinging to his neck, performing a most ridiculous but gratifying operation on William's head.

Cœlum petimus sultitiâ. &c.] A quotation from Horace, Ode 3, Lib. 1. I fancy our author meant, by adducing it, to say: "We "all, in our folly, would reach a height we cannot attain; and "fancy ourselves wiser than we are. Yet however wise you may be, "good folks, there are none of you but will be glad to take a leaf "out of our book, and gather instruction thence. It is not every 66 one that has a good wit, who can reach the summit of knowledge.” I know not how far Decker might, in this figurative mention of constables, have had an eye to Shakspeare's Much ado about Nothing, A. 3, S. 3, where Dogberry asks the watch: who he thinks "the "most desartless man to be constable," That play must have been some eight years in vogue, when the present tract was written.

A