All the diseased horses in a tedious siege cannot
shew so many fashions, as are to be seene for nothing,
euery day, in Duke _Humfryes walke_. If therefore
you determine to enter into a new suit, warne your
Tailor to attend you in Powles, who, with his hat in
his hand, shall like a spy discouer the stuffe, colour,
and fashion of any doublet, or hose that dare be seene
there, and stepping behind a piller to fill his table-bookes
with those notes, will presently send you into
the world an accomplisht man: by which meanes you
shall weare your clothes in print with the first edition.
But / if Fortune fauour you so much as to make you
no more then a meere country gentleman, or but
some three degrees remoud from him (for which I
should be very sorie, because your London-experience
wil cost you deere before you shall haue ye wit to
know what you are) then take this lesson along with
you: The first time that you venture into Powles,
passe through the body of the Church like a Porter,
yet presume not to fetch so much as one whole turne
in the middle Ile, no nor to cast an eye to _Si quis_
doore (pasted and plaistered vp with Seruing-mens
_supplications_) before you haue paid tribute to the top
of Powles _steeple_ with a single penny: And when you
are mounted there, take heede how you looke downe
into the yard; for the railes are as rotten as your
great-Grandfather; and thereupon it will not be
amisse if you enquire how _Kit Woodroffe_ durst vault
ouer, and what reason he had for it, to put his necke
in hazard of reparations. From hence you may
descend, to talke about the horse that went vp, and
striue, if you can, to know his keeper: take the day
of the Moneth, and the number of the steppes, and
suffer yourselfe to belieue verily that it was not a
horse, but something else in the likenesse of one:
which wonders you may publish, when you returne
into the country, to the great amazement of all
Farmers Daughters, that will almost swound at the
report, and neuer recouer till their banes bee asked
twice in the Church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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