(Page 1) To all GULLS in general, Wealth & Liberty. HOM can I chuse, my most worthy Mæcen-asses, to be patrons to this labour of mine fitter than yourselves? Your hands are ever open, your purses never shut; so that you stand not in the common rank of dry-fisted patrons, who give nothing; for you give all. Scholars, therefore, are much beholden to you, as vintners, players, and punks are: those three trades gain by you more than usurers do by thirty in the hundred: you spend the wines of the one, you make suppers for the other, and change your gold into white money with the third, Who 1 Mæcen-asses.] The equivoque here intended by the implication of Mecenases (Mæcenates) must be sufficiently obvious. Who is more liberal than you? Who, but only citizens, are more free? Blame me not, therefore, if I pick you out from the bunch of book-takers, to consecrate these fruits of my brain, which shall never die, only to you, I know that most of you, O admirable GULLS! can neither write nor read. A HORNBOOK have I invented, because I would have you well schooled. Paul's is your walk, but this your guide: if it lead you right, thank me; if astray, men will bear with your errors, because you are (A 3) GULLS. Farewell. * Paul's is your walk.] The body of St. Paul's church (or Powles, as it was then commonly read) was, in Decker's day, the publick, and even fashionable walk, but more particularly the resort of loungers, cheats, and knights of the post; for it was a privileged place convenient to the debtor. Nashe, Lodge, Greene, and other writers of that era, make frequent mention of it. Osborne, in his Memoirs of K. James I. says, that, till about the interregnum, men of all professions walked in the middle isle from eleven till noon, and after dinner from three to six: and he adds; that in regard of the universal commerce, there happened little, that did not first or last arrive there, In short, it was the seat of traffick and negociation in general, even the moneychangers had their stations in it. See a note at the latter part of Chapter 5. Bishop Earle has a section entitled Paul's Walk, in his Microcosmography, of which there is a very valuable edition recently put forth, with notes, by Philip Bliss, Esq. of Oxford. (II blank) (III) To the Reader. ENTLE reader, I could willingly be content that thou shouldst neither be at cost to buy this book, nor at the labour to read it. It is not my ambition to be a man in print thus, 'every term: Ad prelum tanquam ad prælium; we should come to the press as we come to the field, seldom. This tree of GULLS was planted long 1 every term.] The fashionable seasons in London were formerly regulated by the law-terms, fashionable persons thronging to the metropolis at those periods; as is now done in the winter, or early in the spring. Authors, and booksellers made it a point to produce something new every term. Nashe had always a work ready for these seasons, so had Churchyard. Constant allusion to the printing for each term may be found in the prefaces to the ephemeral publications of Q. Elizabeth's day, and in most pamphlets. By the way, it is to It since; but not taking root, could never bear till now. hath a relish of Grobianism, and tastes very strongly be remarked that the word pamphlet, which now always means a prose publication, was formerly used to designate one in verse. Hall, mentioning a reader of his satires, so uses the word pamphlet: "Yet when he hath my crabbed pamphlet read." And thus Marston: VIRGIDEMIARUM, Sat. 1. Book 4, "These notes were better sung 'mong better sort; SCOURGE OF VILLANY, Sat. 4, Book 1. 2 Grobianism.] Decker here alludes to the poem entitled Grobianus, by a German author, Frederick Dedekind, a native of Neustat, which is written in Latin elegiack verse, and in its nature somewhat resembles Erasmus's Panegyrick on Folly; but its leading object is to exhibit rules for good manners, though it apparently inculcates incivility. Dean Swift had possibly read it, and composed in consequence his admirable Directions to Servants. Indeed the English version of Grobianus, which I shall hereafter notice, is dedicated to him. Dedekind's book is an amplification of the old Latin verses formerly used in schools by Sulpicius Verulanus, and the equally celebrated Stans Puer in Mensam: it is not improbable but it might have been once considered a mirthful manual for boys, to teach them proper behaviour, Rare as it is now become, it had gone through several editions; whence we may infer that it was a favourite with the publick. As far as my information serves me, I will endeavour to enumerate its editions: The first certainly came out 1549, but I only know it from quotation; where printed, and its exact title, I cannot learn; I should imagine it to be the same with that given in the Delicie Poetarum Germanorum,(of which presently) when the poem consisted but of two books.— of |