This, I confess, is a freeman: but it may be said, that many persons are so shackled by their fortune, that they are hindered from enjoyment of that manumission which they have obtained from virtue. I do both understand, and in part feel, the weight of this objection: all I can answer to it is, that we must get as much liberty as we can, we must use our utmost endeavours, and, when all that is done, be contented with the length of that line which is allowed us. If you ask me, in what condition of life I think the most allowed; I should pitch upon that sort of people, whom King James was wont to call the happiest of our nation, the men placed in the country by their fortune above an high constable, and yet beneath the trouble of a justice of peace; in a moderate plenty, without any just argument for the desire of increasing it by the care of many relations; and with so much knowledge and love of piety and philosophy (that is, of the study of God's laws, and of his creatures) as may afford him matter enough never to be idle, though without business; and never to be melancholy, though without sin or vanity.

I shall conclude this tedious discourse with a prayer of mine in a copy of Latin verses, of which I remember no other part; and (pour faire bonne bouche), with some other verses upon the same subject:

Magne Deus, quod ad has vitæ brevis attinet horas,

Da mihi, da panem libertatemque, nec ultrà
Sollicitas effundo preces: si quid datur ultrà,
Accipiam gratus; si non, contentus abibo."

For the few hours of life allotted me,
Give me, (great God!) but bread and liberty,
I'll beg no more: if more thou'rt pleased to give,
I'll thankfully that overplus receive :

If beyond this no more be freely sent,
I'll thank for this, and go away content.

MARTIAL. LIB. I. EP. LVI.

"Vota tui breviter," &c.

WELL then, Sir, you shall know how far extend
The prayers and hopes of your poetic friend.
He does not palaces nor manors crave,

Would Be no lord, but less a lord would Have;
The ground he holds, if he his own can call,
He quarrels not with Heaven because 'tis small:
Let gay and toilsome greatness others please
He loves of homely littleness the ease.
Can any man in gilded rooms attend,
And his dear hours in humble visits spend,
When in the fresh and beauteous fields he may
With various healthful pleasures fill the day?
If there be man (ye gods!) I ought to hate,
Dependance and attendance be his fate;
Still let him busy be, and in a crowd,
And very much a slave, and very proud:
Thus he perhaps powerful and rich may grow;
No matter, ye gods! that I'll allow :
But let him peace and freedom never see;
Let him not love this life, who loves not me!

MARTIAL. LIB. II. EP. LIII.

"Vis fieri liber?" &c.

way:

WOULD YOU be free? 'Tis your chief wish, you say;
Come on; I'll show thee, friend, the certain
If to no feasts abroad thou lovest to go,
While bounteous God does bread at home bestow;
If thou the goodness of thy clothes dost prize
By thine own use, and not by others' eyes;
If (only safe from weathers) thou canst dwell
In a small house, but a convenient shell;
If thou, without a sigh, or golden wish,
Canst look upon thy beechen bowl and dish ;-
If in thy mind such power and greatness be,
The Persian king's a slave compared with thee.

THAT I do you with humble bows no more,
And danger of my naked head, adore;
That I, who "Lord and master," cry'd erewhile,
Salute you, in a new and different style,
By your own name, a scandal to you now;
Think not that I forget myself or you:
By loss of all things, by all others sought,
This freedom, and the freeman's hat, is bought.

A lord and master no man wants, but he
Who o'er himself has no authority;
Who does for honours and for riches strive,
And follies, without which lords cannot live.
If thou from fortune dost no servant crave,
Believe it, thou no master need'st to have.

ODE UPON LIBERTY.

FREEDOM with Virtue takes her seat;
Her proper place, her only scene,
Is in the golden mean,

She lives not with the poor nor with the great.
The wings of those Necessity has clipp'd,

And they're in Fortune's bridewell whipp'd
To the laborious task of bread ;

These are by various tyrants captive led.
Now wild Ambition with imperious force

Rides, reins, and spurs them, like the' unruly horse;
And servile Avarice yokes them now,

Like toilsome oxen, to the plough ;

And sometimes Lust, like the misguided light, Draws them through all the labyrinths of night. few among the great there be

If any

From these insulting passions free,

Yet we even those, too, fetter'd see

By custom, business, crowds, and formal decency:
And, wheresoe'er they stay, and wheresoe'er they
Impertinences round them flow:

These are the small uneasy things
Which about greatness still are found,
And rather it molest than wound:

[go,

Like gnats, which too much heat of summer brings; But cares do swarm there, too, and those have As, when the honey does too open lie,

A thousand wasps about it fly:

Nor will the master even to share admit;

[stings:

The master stands aloof, and dares not taste of it.

"Tis morning well; I fain would yet sleep on :
You cannot now; you must be gone
To court, or to the noisy hall:

Besides, the rooms without are crowded all;
The stream of business does begin,
And a spring-tide of clients is come in.

Ah cruel guards, which this poor prisoner keep!
Will they not suffer him to sleep?

Make an escape; out at the postern flee,
And get some blessed hours of liberty:
With a few friends, and a few dishes, dine,
And much of mirth and moderate wine.
To thy bent mind some relaxation give,
And steal one day out of thy life to live.
Oh happy man (he cries) to whom kind Heaven
Has such a freedom always given !

Why, mighty madman, what should hinder thee
From being every day as free?

In all the freeborn nations of the air,
Never did bird a spirit so mean and sordid bear,
As to exchange his native liberty

Of soaring boldly up into the sky,
His liberty to sing, to perch, or fly,

When and wherever he thought good,
And all his innocent pleasures of the wood,
For a more plentiful or constant food.