If you be a Courtier, discourse of the obtaining
of Suits: of your mistresses fauours, etc. Make
inquiry, if any gentleman at boord haue any suit, to
get which he would vse ye good means of a great
mans Interest with the King: and withall (if you
haue not so much grace left in you as to blush) that
you are (thankes to your starres) in mightie credit,
though in your owne conscience you know, and are
guilty to your selfe, that you dare not (but onely
vpon the priuiledges of hansome clothes) presume to
peepe into the presence. Demand if there be any
Gentleman (whom any there is acquainted with) that
is troubled with two offices; or any Vicar with two
Church-liuings; which will politickly insinuate, that
your inquiry after them is because you haue good
means to obtaine them; yea and rather then your
tongue should not be heard in the roome, but that
you should sit (like / an Asse) with your finger in your
mouth, and speake nothing: discourse how often this
Lady hath sent her Coach for you; and how often
you have sweat in the Tennis-court with that great
Lord: for indeede the sweting together in _Fraunce_
(I mean the society of Tennis) is a great argument
of most deere affection, euen between noblemen and
Pesants.
If you be a Poet, and come into the Ordinary
(though it can be no great glory to be an ordinary
Poet) order yourselfe thus. Obserue no man, doff
not cap to that Gentleman to day at dinner, to
whom, not two nights since, you were beholden for
a supper; but, after a turne or two in the roome,
take occasion (pulling out your gloues) to haue some
_Epigram_, or _Satyre_, or _Sonnet_ fastned in one of them,
that may (as it were vomittingly to you) offer it selfe
to the Gentlemen: they will presently desire it: but,
without much coniuration from them, and a pretty
kind of counterfet loathnes in yourselfe, do not read
it; and though it be none of your owne, sweare you
made it. Mary, if you chaunce to get into your
hands any witty thing of another mans, that is somewhat
better, I would councell you then, if demand
bee made who composed it, you may say: faith, a
learned Gentleman, a very worthy friend. And this
seeming to lay it on another man will be counted
either modestie in you, or a signe that you are not
ambitious of praise, or else that you dare not take it
vpon you, for feare of the sharpnesse it carries with
it. Besides, it will adde much to your fame to let
your tongue walke faster then your teeth, though you
be neuer so hungry, and, rather then you should sit
like a dumb Coxcomb, to repeat by heart either some
verses of your owne, or of any other mans, stretching
euen very good lines vpon the rack of the censure:
though it be against all law, honestie, or conscience,
it may chaunce saue you the price of your Ordinary,
and beget you other _Suppliments_. Mary, I would
further intreat our Poet to be in league with the
Mistresse of the Ordinary, because from her (vpon
condition that he will but ryme knights and yong
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