John Ploughman's Pictures

FRIENDLY READERS,

Last time I made a book I trod on some people’s corns and bunions, and they

(7) wrote me angry letters, asking, “Did you mean me?” This time, to save them the expense of a halfpenny card, I will begin my book by saying —

Whether I please or whether I tease,

I’ll give you my honest mind; If the cap should fit, pray wear it a bit,

If not, you can leave it behind.

No offence is meant; but if anything in these pages should come home to a man, let him not send it next door, but get a coop for his own chickens. What is the use of reading or hearing for other people? We do not eat and drink for them: why should we lend them our ears and not our mouths? Please then, good friend, if you find a hoe on these premises, weed your own garden with it.

I was speaking with Will Shepherd the other day about our master’s old donkey, and I said, “He is so old and stubborn, he really is not worth his keep.” “No,” said Will, “and worse still, he is so vicious, that I feel sure he’ll do somebody a mischief one of these days.” You know they say that walls have ears; we were talking rather loud, but we did not know that there were ears to haystacks. We stared, I tell you, when we saw Joe Scroggs come from behind the stack, looking as red as a turkey-cock, and raving like mad. He burst out swearing at Will and me, like a cat spitting at a dog. His monkey was up and no mistake. He’d let us know that he was as good a man as either of us, or the two put together, for the matter of that. Talking about him in that way; he’d do — I don’t know what. I told old Joe we had never thought of him, nor said a word about him, and he might just as well save his breath to cool his porridge, for nobody meant him any harm. This only made him call me a liar, and roar the louder. My friend, Will, was walking away, holding his sides, but when he saw that Scroggs was still in a fume, he laughed outright, and turned round on him and said, “Why, Joe, we were talking about master’s old donkey, and not about you; but, upon my word, I shall never see that donkey again without thinking of Joe Scroggs.” Joe puffed and blowed, but perhaps he thought it an awkward job, for he backed out of it, and Will and I went off to our work in rather a merry cue, for old Joe had blundered on the truth about himself for once in his life.

The aforesaid Will Shepherd has sometimes come down rather heavy upon me in his remarks, but it has done me good. It is partly through his home thrusts that I have come to write this new book, for he thought I was idle; perhaps I am, and perhaps I am not. Will forgets that I have other fish to fry and tails to butter; and he does not recollect that a ploughman’s mind wants to lie fallow a little, and can’t give a crop every year. It is hard to make rope when your hemp is all used up, or pancakes without batter, or rook pie without the birds; and so I found it hard to write more when I had said just about all I knew. Giving much to the poor doth increase a man’s store, but it is not the same with writing; at least, I am such a poor scribe that I don’t find it come because I pull. If your thoughts only flow by drops, you can’t pour them out in bucketfuls.

However, Will has ferreted me out, and I am obliged to him so far. I told him the other day, what the winkle said to the pin: “Thank you for drawing me out, but you are rather sharp about it.” Still, Master Will is not far from the mark: after three hundred thousand people had bought my book it certainly was time to write another: so, though I am not a hatter, I will again turn cap-maker, and those who have heads may try on my wares; those who have none won’t touch them.

So, friends,
I am,

Yours, rough and ready,

JOHN PLOUGHMAN.

BURN A CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS,
AND IT WILL SOON BE GONE.

WELL may he scratch his head who burns his candle at both ends; but, do what he may, his light will soon begone, and he will be all in the dark. Young Jack (12)

Careless squandered his property, and now he is without a shoe to his foot. His was a case of “easy come, easy go: soon gotten, soon spent.” He that earns an estate will keep it better than he that inherits it. As the Scotchman says, “He that gets gear before he gets wit is but a short time master of it,” and so it was with Jack. His money burnt holes in his pocket. He could not get rid of it fast enough himself, and so he got a pretty set to help him, which they did by helping themselves. His fortune went like a pound of meat in a kennel of hounds. He was everybody’s friend, and now he is everybody’s fool.

He came in to old Alderman Greedy’s money, for he was his nephew; but, as the old saying is, the fork followed the rake, the spender was heir to the hoarder. God has been very merciful to some of us in never letting money come rolling in upon us, for most men are carried off their legs if they meet with a great wave of fortune. Many of us would have been bigger sinners if we had been trusted with larger purses. Poor Jack had plenty of pence, but little sense. Money is easier made than made the use of. What is hard to gather is easy to scatter. The old gentleman had lined his nest well, but Jack made the feathers fly like flakes of snow in winter-time. He got rid of his money by shovelfuls and then by cartloads. After spending the interest, he began swallowing the capital, and so killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. He squandered his silver and gold, in ways which must never be told. It would not go fast enough, and so he bought race-horses to run away with it. He got into the hands of blacklegs, and fell into company of which we shall say but little; only when such madams smile, men’s purses weep: these are a well without a bottom, and the more a fool throws in, the more he may. The greatest beauty often causes the greatest ruin. Play, women, and wine are enough to make a prince a pauper.

Always taking out and never putting back soon empties the biggest sack, and so Jack found it; but he took no notice till his last shilling bade him good-bye, and then he said he had been robbed; like silly Tom who put his finger in the fire and said it was his bad luck.

Keep reading