THE WORT H OF A PENNY: OR A Caution to keep Money. With the Causes of the scarcity and misery of the want hereof, in these hard and merciless Times. AS ALSO How to save it in our diet, apparel, recreations, &c. And also What honest courses men in want may take to live. By H. P., Master of Arts. LONDON, Printed Ann. Dom. 1647. [This date is a misprint, apparently for 1641. This first edition was privately printed, see p. 248.] (We have been careful to distinguish in the present text, what PEACHAM himself wrote, from the additions by his friend [p. 248] and others, in the posthumous editions of 1664, 1667, 1669, and 1676. All such fresh matter, whether in the text or side-notes, is shewn between square brackets, [ ].) To the every way deserving and worthy Gentleman, Master RICHARD GIPPS, eldest son unto Master RICHARD GIPPS, one of the Judges of the Court of Guild SIR, hall, in the city of London. HEN I finished this discourse of The Worth of a Penny, or A Caution to keep Money, and bethinking myself unto whom I should offer the Dedication; none came more opportunely into my thought, than your self! For I imagined, if I should dedicate the same unto any penurious or miser-able minded man, it would make him worse, and be more uncharitable and illiberal: if unto a bountiful and free-minded Patron, I should teach him to hold his hand; and, against his nature, make him a miser. I, to avoid either, made choice of yourself! who being yet unmarried, walk alone by yourself; having neither occasion of the one nor the other. Besides, you have travelled [in] France and Italy, and I hope have learned Thrift in those places: and understand what a virtue Parsimony is, for want thereof, how many young heirs in England have galloped through their estates, before they have been thirty! Lastly, my obligation is so much to your learned and good father, and (for goodness) your incomparable mother; that I should ever have thought the worse of myself, if I had not cum tota mea supellex sit chartacea, as ERASMUS saith, I had not expressed my duty and hearty love to you, one way or other. Whose in all service, I am truly, HENRY PEACHAM. [An Advertisement to the Reader. By WILLIAM LEE, the Publisher, in 1664, and 1667. 1664. Master PEACHAM, many years since, having finished this little book of The Worth of a Penny, did read it unto me; and some eminent friends of his, being then present, we were much pleased with his conceits. The chief intent of printing it, was to present them [copies] to his friends. But some years after, Mr. PEACHAM dying, and the book being so scarce that most of the considerable booksellers in London had never heard of it, many Gentlemen of great worth were very importunate with me, to print the book anew: but after much search and inquiry, I found the book without any printer's name, and without any true date [i.e., 1647 instead 1641 or 2]; and having procured it, to be licensed and entered [in 1664], and corrected all the mistakes in it, I have, in an orderly way, reprinted a small number of them, word for word, as it was in the original. Only a friend of his, that knew him well in the Low Countries, and when he was Tutor to the Earl of ARUNDEL's children, hath added some notes in the margent, and translated some Greek and Latin sentences, which were omitted in the first impression. To speak much of the worth of the Author is needless, who, by his own Works, hath left unto the World a worthy memorial of himself; his book called The complete Gentleman, being in the year 1661, reprinted the third time: and divers others books of his. And, Reader, know, that there is no felicity in this life, nor comfort at our death, without a good conscience in a healthful body, and a competent estate and most remarkable is the saying of that eminent wise man Industry is Fortune's right hand, and Frugality her left. Read this book over, and if thou hast a Penny, it will teach thee how to keep it; and if thou hast not a Penny, it will teach thee how to get it. And so, farewell. W. L. 1667. Reader, I reprinted this little book about two years since [June 24, 1664], and the number printed presently selling in a few days all away, I intended suddenly to have printed it again; but the great judgement of that fearful Plague, 1665, hindered the printing of it: and it being afterwards fitted for the press, the late dreadful Fire burnt that copy [edition] with many thousands of other books burnt with it. But now [May 17, 1667], it is so well fitted and corrected; with some useful additions printed in a change of letter [Italic type, as also in this 1883 edition] that, with your good husbandry it will so increase your store, that you may have ". a penny to spend, a penny to lend, and a penny for thy friend." The number of books [copies] printed then [1664] was so much sold off within a few days in London, that there hath not been books left for to serve the country, not one for every shire in England! that the country at this day, is altogether unfurnished with them. W. L.] THE WORTH OF A PENNY: ORA Caution to keep Money. HE Ambassador [J. BEN ABDELLA] of MULEY HAMET Sheik, King of Morocco, when he was in England, about four or five years since [He arrived in London on October 8, 1637], said on a time, sitting at dinner at his house at Wood street, "He thought verily, that Algiers was four times as rich as London." An English merchant replied that he "thought not so; but that London was far richer than that! and for plenty, London might compare with Jerusalem, in the peaceful days of SOLOMON." For my part, I believe neither! especially the merchant. For, in the time of SOLOMON, silver was as plentiful in Jeru salem as stones in the street: but with us, stones are in far more abundance, when, in every street in London, you may walk over five thousand loads, ere you will find a single Penny. Again, the general complaint and murmur throughout the Kingdom, of the scarcity and want of money, argues that we fall far short of that plenty which the merchant imagined. And, one time, I began to bethink myself, and to look into the causes of our want and this general scarcity: and I found them manifold. First, some men, who, by their wits or industry, or both, have screwed or wound themselves into vast estates, and gathered thousands like the griffins of Bactria; when they have met with a gold mine, so brood over and watch it, day and night, that it is impossible for Charity to be regarded, Virtue rewarded, or Necessity relieved: and this we know to have been the ruin, not only of such private persons themselves, but of whole Estates and Kingdoms. That I may instance one for many. Constantinople was taken by the |