GRESHAM

Else should I ill deserve The title that I wear, a Merchants tongue Should not strike false. I be thought my self Both of the gain and losses incident, And this I tak't was the whole circumstance: It was my motion and I think your promise, To get me a sealed Patent from your king For all your Barbary Sugar at a price, During the kings life; and for his princely love, I am to send him threescore thousand pounds. As much as I desire; pray sir draw near And taste a cup of wine, while I consider And thoroughly scan such accidental doubts, As may concern a matter of such moment. How thrives our Cash? what is it well increased? I speak Like one that must be forced to borrow. Merry, tell me knave, Dost not thou think that three score thousand pounds, Would make and honest Merchant try his friends? Praise God for all, but what's the common rumor Touching my bargain with the King of Barbary? Good: but withal, What do they think in general of the Bargain? I think no less: Go fit you for the sea, I mean to send you into Barbary: You unto Venice, You to Portugal, Provide you presently: where much is spent, Some must be God, thrift should be provident: Come hither Cousin, all the rest depart. I have taken note of your bade husbandry, Careless respect, and prodigal expense, And out of my experience counsel you. Antonio reports you love his wife. He hates you fort. He told me, you bestowed a gown of a strumpet. Well, if your prodigal expenses be aimed At any virtuous and religious end, 'Tis the more tolerable, and I am proud You can so probably excuse your self. Well Cousin, hoping yowl prove a new man. On these presumptions isle apparel thee, And to confirm this resolution, I will prefer you unto Master Hobson, A man of a well known discretion. Your education challenge more respect. The Factor dealt for him in France, is dead. I do indeed. Now afore God my thoughts were much against him, And my intent was to have chid him roundly, But his submissive recantation. Hath made me friends with him, Come follow me, I'll do thee good, and that immediately. Where's M. Hobson, cry you mercy sir. At your best leisure. You know my business. Why this is he. Why this. I must confess he is a Gentleman, And my near kinsman: were he mine own child, His service should be yours. How stand you minded to your Master's motion? Pray God it may. Byr'lady sir, ten pounds is too much to lose, But ten times ten pound cannot shake your credit. He is so obstinate, That neither Juries, nor Commissions, Nor the entreaties of his nearest friends, Can stoop him unto composition. A good resolve: but fit Thomas Ramsies mind Is of another temper, and ere Gresham Will give away a tittle of his right, The Law shall beggar me. To prevent which course, The Lady Ramsey hath by earnest suit, Procured the reverent Preacher Doctor Nowell, A man well reckoned for his graven respect. To compromise and end our difference, The place the Lombard, ten of clock the hour Appointed for the hearing of our cause. Shall I request your friendly company, I'll have you both know though you are my friends, I scorn my cause should stoop or yeele to him, Although he be reputed Ramsie the rich. Know, what shall I know? And Gresham is as good a man as Ramsie. And t'is a goodly Manor, M. Dean. And so was mine. No matter for your beads, my right's my right. Ther's law enough to right you, take your course. Friend Hobson. Sir Thomas Ramsis. Gods precious, I have spent five hundred pound, Before God 'tis true: and now I think upon it, We might at first have ended it by friends, And made our selves merry with the money: But being done, 'tis done, then sir Thomas Ramsey, Let's leave both losers', 'tis but a thousand pound, And if you be as well content as I, Here weel shake hands and let our anger die. Madame, 'tis true: I think to any but so good a man, We should have both been headstrong: but come. Amen, amen, sir Thomas. Good sooth 'tis true, if we could think it so, But 'tis men nature, he desires his woe. Now passion of me sir Thomas, a cruel storm, And we stay long we shall be wet to the skin, I do not liked, nay and it anger's me That such a famous City as this is, Wherein so many gallant Merchants are, Have not a place to meet in, but in this, Where every shower of rain must trouble' them: I cannot tell but if I live: lets step into the Popes head, We shall be dropping dry if stay here: I'll have a roof built, and such a roof, That Merchants and their wives, friend and their friends Shall walk underneath it as now in Powles. What day of the Month is this? The tenth of March, well if I live, I'll raise a work shall make our Merchants say, Was a good shower that fell upon that day. How now Jack? I thank him for his care of thee: M. Hobson, My kinsman's come to take his leave of me, He tells me you are sending him for France. Oh M. Hobson, he comes in a very good time, I was bethinking me whom I might send To fetch this hundred pound, I am set to pay To sir Thomas Ramsey: nay, as we are friends Weel have all Covenants kept before we partly. Here John take this sealed Ring, Bid Timothy presently send me a hundred pound. I am sure he hath it ready told for thee, Weel stay here on the Lombard till thou comest. A cup of Sack and welcome M. Dean, Nature is best contented with a mean. Come M. Worser. Nowell, now we have done Our worst to your good cheer, wee'd feign be gone: Only we stay my kinsmans long return, To pay this hundred pound to sir Thomas Ramsie. Are all these Pictures of good Citizens? You shall gain more in showing this to us, Then you have shown. Why should not all of us being wealthy men, And by Gods blessing only raised; but Cast in our minds how we might them exceed In godly works, helping of them that needs. Fore-god they have starred tears into my eyes, And M. Worser. Nowel you shall see The words that you have spoke, have wrought effect in me. I'll learn then to prevent them while I live, The good I mean to do; these hands shall give. Done knave, what's done? Marry God knave dost tell me Riddles, what's all this? Oh he has brought the hundred pound, where is he? What more paper:! Fellow, what hast thou brought me here, a recantation? Bade life, bade life knave, what means all this? M. Worser. Nowell, pray read it for me, And I'll read that my kinsman John hath sent: Where is he knave? Knave thou meanest. Heyday, what have we here, knavery as quick as Ecles? Weel more of this. Why knave, dost think I cannot hold a paper. Away knave, let me read on. My father gave me a portion, You keep away my endue: I have paid my self a partly to spend, Here's a discharge for you. Precious coal, here's a knave round with me. How, at my suit! How, run behind hand five hundred pound, And by bade company: M. Dean of Powles, He is a fellow seems so pure of life, I drust have trusted him with all I had had. Would, let me see, who set you to arrest him? He, would, infaith I smell the knavery then: This knave belike mistrusting of my kinsman, Would come along to see the money given me: Mad Jack having no trick to put him off, Arrests him with a Sergeant at my suit, There went my hundred pound away: this Thin-beard then Knowing himself to have played the knave with me, And thinking I had arrested him indeed, Confesses all his tricks with yea, and nay: So hers five hundred pound come, one run away. No matter M. Hobson, the charge you trust him with, I'll see he shall discharge, I know he is wild, Yet I must tell you isle not see him sunk: And afore-god it hath done my heart more good, The knave had wit to do so mad a trick, Then if he had pofited me twice so much. Is the more Like his Uncle, Sir Thomas Ramsie When I was young I do remember well, I was as very a knave as he is now. Sirrah, bring Thin-beard hither to me, and sir Thomas Ramsie, Your hundred pound isle see you paid my self: Would would, mad Jack, Gramercy for this slight, This hundred pounds makes me thy Uncle right. Our Cities Sword-bearer and my very good friend, What have our honourable Court of Aldermen Determined yet shall Gresham have a place, To erect this worthy building to his name, May make the City speak of him for ever. Be you my Agent too and from to them, I know your place and will be thankful to you: Tell them I wait here in the Majors Court, Beneath in the Sheriffs Court my workmen wait In number full a hundred, my Frame is ready, All only stay their pleasure, then out of hand Up goes my work, a credit to the Land. Do good M. Sword-bearer, now when this work is It shall be in the pleasure of my life, (raised, To come and meet our Merchants at their hour, And see them in the greatest storm that is Walk dry, and in a work I raised for them: Or fetch a turn within my upper walk, Within which square I have ordered Shops shall be Of neat but necessariest Trades in London. And in the richest sort being garnished out, Will do me good to see shops with fair wives Fit to attend the profit of their husbands: Young maids brought vpyong men as prentices. Some shall prove Master's and speak in Greshams praise, In Greshams work we did our Fortune's raise. For I dare say both Country and the Court, For wares shall be beholding to this work. M Shnife isle doo't, and what I spend therein, I scorn to loose day, neglect is a sin: Where be my work men? Come fellows, come: We have a Frame made, and we have room To raise it: but M. Worser. Nowell, and M. Hobson, We have your presence in a happy time, This seventh of June we the first stone will lay Of our new Burse, give us some Bricks: Here's a brick, here's a fair Sovereign, Thus I begin, be it hereafter told I laid the first stone with a piece of gold. He that loves Gresham follow him in this, The gold we lay, endue to the workmen is. The whole Plot both of form and fashion. Stowage for Merchants beware and strangers goods, As either by exchange or otherways are vendable. The grates give light unto the Cellerage, Upon the which isle have my friends to walk, When heaven gives comfortable rain unto the earth: For that I will have covered, This space that hides not heaven from us, Shall be so still, my reason is, Ther's Summer's heat, as well as winter's cold, And I allow and here's my reason for't, 'Tis better to be bleak't by winter's breath, Then to be stifled up with Summer's heat: In cold weather walk dry and thick together, And every honest man warm one another: In Summer then when too much heat offends, Take air a Gods name Merchants or my friends. M. Dean in this: There is more beware there then in all the rest, Here Like a parish for good Citizens And their fair wives to dwell in, isle have shops Where every day they shall become themselves In neat attire, that when our Courtiers Shall come in trains to pace old Greshams Burse, They shall have such a girdle of chaste eyes, And such a globe of beauty round about: Ladies shall blush to turn their vizards off, And Courtiers swear they lied when they did scoff. Oh M Nowell I did not forget The troublesome storm we had in Lumbar-fleet, That time Sir Thomas and I were adversaries, And you and M. Hobson made us friends. I then did say, and now isle keep my word, I saw a want and I would help afford: Nor is my promise given you when you showed That rank of charitable men to us, That I would follow their good actions Forgotten with me, but that before I die, The world shall see I'll leave Like memory. Well said M Hobson. Lets have a day, that if death come to morrow He's rather messenger of joy then sorrow. Now sir what news from Barbary? Would, slain by treason or by war. Could news byr'lady, the venture Gentlemen Of threescore thousand pound with that dead King, Lies in a hazard to be won or lost: In what estate consists the Kingdom now? To that King then be Messenger from us, And by the found of Trumpet summon him? Say that thy Master and a London Merchant, Craves endue performance of such covenants Confirmed by the late King unto our self, That for the sum of threescore thousand pound, The traffic of his Sugars should be mine. If he refuse the former bargain made, Then freely claim our money that we lent: Say that our coin did stead the former King, If he be Kind we have as much for him. Nay M. Hebson grieve not at Jack's cross, My doubt is more and that I laugh at less. Lords all at once welcome, welcome at once, You come to my new buildings up sitting, It hath been long in labour now deliver. anon weel have a health to it. This Russian Prince the Emberours Ambassador Doth not our Language understand: Interpreter, Say that the we bid him welcome. We understand that sign. Come let our full crowned cups overflow with wine, Welcome again fair Lords. My Burse how do you Like it Lord, It is a pretty babble. She does her servant Gresham too much grace, It will be pretty when my Pictures come To fill those empty rooms, if that holds, That ships rich is worth her weight in gold. What was it that the Russian whispered? Show him the Pearl Interpreter: The Lord Ambassador. I will peruse your pearl, is that your prize? We'll not be accessary to your Loss, And yet consider all things some may think us To be but bore of treasure at this time, Having disbursed so much about our works: Yet if our ships and Trade in Barbary Hold currant we are well: what news from Sea, How stands my ships? The Loss, I way not this: Only it grieves me that my famous building, Shall want so rich and fair and ornament. My ships but wealth, why we have wealth; The pictures were the grace of my new Burse, So I might them in their true form behold, I cared not to have lost their weights in gold. Our Factor, what good news from Barbary? What says the King, speak, didst thou summon him? Or hast thou brought my threescore thousand pound? Or shall I have the Sugars at that rate? If so, new marble Pictures weel have wrought, And in a new ship from beyond-sea brought. Byr'lady a deer bargain. A dagger that's well, A pair of slippers come unto my shoes, What 30. thousand pound in sterling money, And paid me all in slips, then Hoboyes play, On slippers isle dance all my care away: Fit, fit, he had the joust length of my foot. You may report Lords when you come to Court, You Gresham saw a pair of slippers wear Cost thirty thousand pound. Jeweller, Let's see thy pearl: go pound it in a Mortar, Beat it to powder then return it me, What Dukes, and Lords, and these Ambassadors Have even before our face refused to purchase As of too high a price to venture on, Gresham a London Merchant here will buy. What is it broken small? fill us some wine, Fuller, yet fuller till the brim or'e-flows, Here 16000. pound at one clap goes, In stead of Sugar, Gresham drinks this pearl Unto his Queen and Mistress: pledge it Lords, Who ever saw a Merchant brauelier fraught, In dearer slippers or a richer draught? I do not this as prodigal of my wealth, Rather to show how I esteem that lose Which cannot be regained, A London Merchant Thus tread on a kings present: Jeweller, My Factor shall deliver you your money. And Lords so please you but to see my School, Of the seven learned liberal Sciences, Which I have founded here near Bishopsgate, I will conduct you. I will make it Lords And University within it self, And giu`t from my revenues maintenance. W'are not Like those that are not liberal Till they be dying, what we mean to give, We will bestow, and see done while we live. Attendance, come, ambassador, guess all, Your welcome's great, albeit your cheer's but small Your humble subject and servant. May it please your Majesty, He is a rich substantial Citizen. I'll resolve you straight. Bethink thee Gresham, threescore thousand pounds A good round sum: let not the hope of gain Draw thee to lose. I am to have a Patent For all the Barbary Sugars at a rate, The gain clears half in half, but then the hazard: My term continues during the kings life, The King may die before my first return, Then where my Cash? why, so the King may live These 40. years, then where is Greshams gain: It stands in this as in all ventures else Doubtful, no more, isle through what ere it cost. So much clear gain, or so much coin clear lost. Within there ho. If he do respect and Uncle's love, let him be diligent. And we may be ashamed, For in their deeds we see our own disgrace, We that are Citizens are rich as they were. Behold rheir charity in every street, Churches for prayer, Almshouses for the poor, Conduits which bring us water: all which good We do see and are relieved withal, And yet we live Like beasts, spend time and die, Leaving no good to be remembered by. Your Majesty promised to give the name To my new Burse. None, tell him none. For though a woman, she is a rare Linguist, Where other Princes use Interpreters, She propriam voice, I have some Latin too: She of her self hears all their Embassies, And herself answers them without Interpreter, Both Spanish, Latin, French, and Greek, Dutch, and Italian, so let him know: My Lord of Leicester sent me word last night, And I am prouder on't then on my building, The Queen to grace me and my works the more, The several Ambassadors then will hear, And them in person answer. How can you satisfy the great complaint Preferred against you by old Mistress Blunt. A woman of approved honesty. She bring sin further proof, that you miscalled her. No: she says you called her Bawd. God for his mercy touch mine honesty, Away with comprimize, with taking up, The Law shall try my cause and honesty. Will pooue as good as Ramsies, Ramsie. I, and I know thine. The Russian with the Frence. What would that Gentleman sir Thomas? By the marry God a worthy Citizen: On good my Dear.