Roger L'Estrange

“ We have in fine a World of Boasting Mules among us, that don't care for being Minded of their Braying Fathers: But 'tis the Fate of These Vain-Glorious Fops to be Thus Met withall, and your Counterfeit Men of Honor seldom come off Better; Wherefore let every Man look well about him before he Boasts of his Pedigree, to see if he had not an Asse to his Father. ”

“ Nay and Over and Above the Self-Conceited Vanity of These Brutes, there are None so forward neither, to Bespatter Men of Blood and Quality, as those that have most Reason to be Asham'd of their Descent. This Pride of Pedigree is Easily run down, if there be not Power Joyn'd to the Ostentation: But where there is Authority given to the Folly, as well as to the Fool; the Indignation that it raises makes the Insolence Insupportable. ”

“ This touches the Case of Those Mean Upstarts, that when they come once to be Preferr'd, forget their Fathers, and have not the Wit to Consider, how soon Fortune may set them Down again where she took ’em up; but yet at last, when they come to be minded of their Original, it makes many a Proud Fool sensible of a Scandalous Extraction, that has no Shame at all for a Scandalous Life. ”