Is the spawn or indeed but the resultancy of nobility, and to the making
of him went not a generation but a genealogy. His trade is honour, and
he sells it and gives arms himself, though he be no gentleman. His
bribes are like those of a corrupt judge, for they are the prices of
blood. He seems very rich in discourse, for he tells you of whole fields
of gold and silver, or, and argent, worth much in French but in English
nothing. He is a great diver in the streams or issues of gentry, and hot
a by-channel or bastard escapes him; yea he does with them like some
shameless quean, fathers more children on them than ever they begot. His
traffick is a kind of pedlary-ware, scutchions, and pennons, and little
daggers and lions, such as children esteem and gentlemen; but his
pennyworths are rampant, for you may buy three whole brawns cheaper than
three boar's heads of him painted. He was sometimes the terrible coat of
Mars, but is now for more merciful battles in the tilt-yard, where
whosoever is victorious, the spoils are his. He is an art in England but
in Wales nature, where they are born with heraldry in their mouths, and
each name is a pedigree.