“A MAN may buy gold too dear,” wrote the English playwright John Heywood (1497-1580) in his collection of proverbs published in 1546.
Heywood was born and raised near London, and educated at Oxford. In his day, Heywood was well known for his plays, poems, and collections of proverbs. His skill in music and his inexhaustible wit made him a favorite with King Henry VIII and Queen Mary. Heywood is important in the history of English drama because he was among the first writers to turn the abstract characters of morality plays into real persons. There is quite a bit of Heywood’s influence in the writings of William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Heywood fled to the European mainland to avoid religious persecution for his Catholic faith. Heywood died in Belgium. Heywood’s legacy to the English language is immense.

Even today some of these sayings have been modernized from his time period style of English.

Some of his more famous sayings, from an anthology published in 1546, are as follows:
(Continued)

Haste makes waste.
Beggars should be no choosers.
All is well that ends well.
You might have gone further and fared worse.
Rome was not built in one day.
Blind men should judge no colors.
Better late than never.
Many a man speak of Robin Hood that never shot his bow.
It is a foul bird that foulest its own nest.
You cannot see the wood for the trees.
This hitteth the nail on the head.
The more the merrier.
The green new broom sweeps clean.
When the sun shineth, make hay.
One good turn asketh another.
An ill wind that bloweth no man to good.
Look ere ye leap.
I shall cut my coat after my cloth.
The fat is in the fire.
Half a loaf is better than none.
I know on which side my bread is buttered.
Two heads are better than one.
Love me, love my dog.
A penny for your thought.
Every man for himself, and God for us all.

So can you “buy gold too dear,” as Heywood cautioned? Heywood lived in a 16th-century era of hard money, based on the gold and silver that was flooding into Europe from the Spanish mines of Mexico and Peru. So perhaps Heywood was referring to trading your gold “too dear” for other real assets. Heywood was cautioning people not to get swindled in their trades. If you look at many other of Heywood’s proverbs, he counseled patience and prudence in one’s dealings in both life and finance. Heywood did not live in a world of fiat currency that was steadily declining in value, such as is the case in our rather sordid economic environment of today.

Can you “buy gold too dear” in our current global monetary environment? Certainly, the spot price will trade up and down in the short term. Gold was trading for well over $700 per ounce on some days of May, and under $600 per ounce on some days of June. But there is a relative consensus that the value of the U.S. dollar is heading for a long-term decline. Hence the dollar-value of gold is due for a long-term increase. So if nothing else, by trading some of your green dollars for some of that yellow gold, you will, in all likelihood, preserve your current purchasing power. And as John Heywood said long ago, “This hitteth the nail on the head.”