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There is no other name for him, but one hears it rarely; yet the shining virtue of democratization is that it has produced a kind of tacit agreement with Chaucer's Parson that 'to have pride in the gentrie of the bodie is right gret folie; for oft-time the gentrie of the bodie benimeth the gentrie of the soul; and also we be all of one fader and one moder. And although there are few men nowadays who would insist that they are gentlemen, there is probably no man living in the United States who would admit that he isn't.
Verily the spoils of the monasteries and churches must have been fairly evenly divided. These are his words: "The furniture of our houses also exceedeth, and is growne in maner even to passing delicacie; and herein I do not speake of the nobilitie and gentrie onely, but even of the lowest sorte that have anything to take to.
No sooner should we set footing in that pleasant and good land, and erect one or two conuenient Fortes in the Continent, or in some Iland neere the maine, but euery step we tread would yeeld vs new occasion of action, which I wish the Gentrie of our nation rather to regard, then to follow those soft vnprofitable pleasures wherein they now too much consume their time and patrimonie, and hereafter will doe much more, when as our neighbour warres being appeased, they are like to haue lesse emploiment then nowe they haue, vnlesse they bee occupied in this or some other the like expedition.
In the olde towne are all the marchants strangers, and very many marchants of the countrey. In the newe towne is the king, and all his Nobilitie and Gentrie. It is a citie very great and populous, and is made square and with very faire walles, and a great ditch roundabout it full of water, with many crocodiles in it: it hath twenty gates, and they bee made of stone, for euery square fiue gates.
Writing more than a century after Fortescue, Sir John Ferne, in his 'Blazon of Gentrie, the Glory of Generosity, and the Lacy's Nobility, observes: "Nobleness of blood, joyned with virtue, compteth the person as most meet to the enterprize of any public service; and for that cause it was not for nought that our antient governors in this land, did with a special foresight and wisdom provide, that none should be admitted into the Houses of Court, being seminaries sending forth men apt to the government of justice, except he were a gentleman of blood.
True Gentrie standeth in the trade Of virtuous life, not in the fleshy line; For bloud is knit, but Gentrie is divine. Mirror for Magistrates. I have mentioned some peculiarities of the Squire in the education of his sons; but I would not have it thought that his instructions were directed chiefly to their personal accomplishments.
See Ferne's "Blazon of Gentrie" p. 238. Edition 1586. Nisbet's "Heraldry", vol. i. p. 113. Second Edition. It will readily occur to the antiquary, that these verses are intended to imitate the antique poetry of the Scalds the minstrels of the old Scandinavians the race, as the Laureate so happily terms them, "Stern to inflict, and stubborn to endure, Who smiled in death."
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