Note 86:A — Chapter V

Lodge's Illustrations of British History, Biography, and Manners, in the Reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, and James I., vol. ii. p. 383.

That this evil kept gradually increasing during the reign of James I., may be proved from the testimony of Peacham and Brathwait; the former, in his Compleat Gentleman, observes,—"Much doe I detest that effeminacy of the most, that burne out day and night in their beds, and by the fire side; in trifles, gaming, or courting their yellow mistresses all the winter in a city; appearing but as cuckoes in the spring, one time in the yeare to the countrey and their tenants, leaving the care of keeping good houses at Christmas, to the honest yeomen of the countrey;" (p. 214.) and the latter, in his English Gentleman, addressing the rural fashionables of his day, exclaims,—"Let your countrey (I say) enjoy you, who bred you, shewing there your hospitality, where God hath placed you, and with sufficient meanes blessed you. I doe not approve of these, who fly from their countrey, as if they were ashamed of her, or had committed something unworthy of her. How blame-worthy then are these Court-comets, whose onely delight is to admire themselves? These, no sooner have their bed-rid fathers betaken themselves to their last home, and removed from their crazie couch, but they are ready to sell a mannor for a coach. They will not take it as their fathers tooke it: their countrey houses must bee barred up, lest the poore passenger should expect what is impossible to finde, releefe to his want, or a supply to his necessity. No, the cage is opened, and all the birds are fled, not one crum of comfort remaining to succour a distressed poore one. Hospitality, which was once a relique of gentry, and a knowne cognizance to all ancient houses, hath lost her title, meerely through discontinuance: and great houses, which were at first founded to releeve the poore, and such needfull passengers as travelled by them, are now of no use but onely as waymarkes to direct them. But whither are these Great ones gone? To the Court; there to spend in boundlesse and immoderate riot, what their provident ancestors had so long preserved, and at whose doores so many needy soules have beene comfortably releeved." Second edition, 1633. p. 332.

In the margin of the page from which this extract is taken, occurs the following note:—"This is excellently seconded by a Princely pen, in a pithy poem directed to all persons to ranke or quality to leave the Court, and returne into their owne countrey."