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I cannot wrest the law to fill the coffer,
With innocent blood to feed myself fat,

And do most hurt where that most help I offer.
I am not he that can allow the state

Of high Cæsar, and damn Cato to die,
That with his death did 'scape out of the gate,
From Cæsar's hands, if Livy doth not lie;
And would not live where Liberty was lost,
So did his heart the commonwealth apply.
I am not he, such eloquence to boast,
To make the crow in singing, as the swan;
Nor call the lion of coward beasts the most,
That cannot take a mouse as the cat can,
And he that dieth for hunger of the gold,
Call him Alexander, and say that Pan
Passeth Apollo in music manifold,
Praise Sir Topas for a noble tale,

And scorn the story that the knight told.

Praise him for counsel that is drunk of ale,

Grin when he laughs*, that beareth all the sway,
Frown when he frowns, and groan when he is pale;
On others lust to hang both night and day.
None of these Poins would ever frame in me;

My wit is nought, I cannot learn the way.
And much the less of things that greater be,
That asken help of colours to devise,
To join the mean with each extremity,
With nearest virtue aye to cloak the vice;

* Grin when he laughs, &c.] So Johnson:
To shake with laughter ere the jest you hear,
To pour at will the counterfeited tear:
And as their patron hints the cold or heat,
To shake in dog-days, in December sweat,

London.

And as to purpose likewise it shall fall,.
To press the virtue that it may not rise;
As drunkenness good fellowship to call,
The friendly foe with his fair double face,
Say he is gentle, and courteous therewithal;
Affirm that Favill hath a goodly grace
In eloquence; and cruelty to name,

Zeal of Justice; and change in time and place:
And he that suffereth offence without blame,
Call him pitiful, and him true and plain
That raileth rechless unto each man's shame*,
Say he is rude, that cannot lie and feign
The lecher a lover, and tyranny
To be right of a prince's reign.
I cannot, I, no no, it will not be.

This is the cause that I could never yet,

Hang on their sleeves the weigh (as thou may'st see)
A chip of chance, more than a pound of wit:
This makes me at home to hunt and hawk,
And in foul weather at my book to sit,
In frost and snow, then with my bow stalk,
No man doth mark whereso I ride or go,
In lusty leas at liberty I walk ;

And of these news I feel no weal no woe,
Save that a clog doth hang yet at my heel,
No force for that, for that is ordered so,
That I may leap both hedge and dyke full well.
I am not now in France to judge the wine,

With savory sauce those delicates to feel,

and him true and plain,

That raileth rechless unto each man's shame.] Thus Horace :

at est truculentior, atque

Plus æquo liber; simplex fortisque habeatur.

Lib. I. Sat. iii. 1. 51,

Nor yet in Spain, where one must him incline,
Rather than to be, outwardly to seem,

I meddle not with wits that be so fine,

Nor Flanders cheer lets to my sight to deem,

Of black and white, nor takes my

wits away,

With beastliness, such do those beasts esteem!
Nor I am not, where truth is given in pay
For money, prison, and treason: of some

A common practice used night and day:
But I am here in Kent and Christendom,
Among the Muses, where I read and rhyme,

Where if thou list, mine own John Poius, to come,
Thou shalt be judge, how I do spend my time.

Sir Thomas Wyat, Tottel's Edit.

THE

PLEASURES OF LITERARY RETIREMENT.

My free-born Muse will not, like Danäe, be
Won with base dross to clip with slavery;
Nor lend her choicer balm to worthless men,
Whose names would die but for some hired pen;
No: if I praise, Virtue shall draw me to it,
And not a base procurement make me do it.
What now I sing is but to pass away
A tedious hour, as some musicians play;

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Or make another my own griefs bemoan;
Or to be least alone when most alone.
In this can I, as oft as I will choose,
Hug sweet Content by my retired muse,
And in a study find as much to please
As others in the greatest palaces.

Each man that lives (according to his power)
On what he loves bestows an idle hour;
Instead of hounds that make the wooded hills
Talk in a hundred voices to the rills,

I like the pleasing cadence of a line
Struck by the concert of the sacred Nine.
In lieu of hawks, the raptures of my soul
Transcend their pitch, and baser earths control.
For running horses, Contemplation flies

With quickest speed to win the greatest prize.
For courtly dancing, I can take more pleasure
To hear a verse keep time and equal measure.
For winning riches, seek the best directions
How I
may
well subdue mine own affections.
For raising stately piles for heirs to come,
Here in this poem I erect my tomb.

And time may be so kind, in these weak lines

To keep my name enroll'd, past his, that shines
In gilded marble, or in brazen leaves:

Since verse preserves, when stone and brass deceives.
Or if (as worthless) Time not lets it live

To those full days which others Muses give,
Yet I am sure I shall be heard and sung
Of most severest eld, and kinder young
Beyond my days, and maugre Envy's strife
Add to my name some hours beyond my life.
Such, of the Muses, are the able powers,
And, since with them I spent my vacant hours,

I find nor hawk, nor hound, nor other thing,
Tournays nor revels, (pleasures for a king)
Yield more delight; for I have oft possess'd
As much in this as all in all the rest,

And that without expense, when others oft
With their undoings have their pleasures bought,
Britannia's Pastorals, by W. Browne,
B. II. Song iv.

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