TO HIS
HONOURED
FRIEND, M.
Robert Herrick
We bless our fortunes when we see
Our own beloved privacy;
And like our living, where we're known
To very few, or else to none.
_Prew_, _i. e. _, his servant, Prudence Baldwin.
553. THE CREDIT OF THE CONQUEROR.
He who commends the vanquished, speaks the power
And glorifies the worthy conqueror.
554. ON HIMSELF.
Some parts may perish, die thou canst not all:
The most of thee shall 'scape the funeral.
556. THE FAIRIES.
If ye will with Mab find grace,
Set each platter in his place;
Rake the fire up, and get
Water in, ere sun be set.
Wash your pails, and cleanse your dairies;
Sluts are loathsome to the fairies;
Sweep your house, who doth not so,
Mab will pinch her by the toe.
557.
TO HIS HONOURED FRIEND, M. JOHN WEARE, COUNCILLOR.
Did I or love, or could I others draw
To the indulgence of the rugged law,
The first foundation of that zeal should be
By reading all her paragraphs in thee,
Who dost so fitly with the laws unite,
As if you two were one hermaphrodite.
Nor courts[t] thou her because she's well attended
With wealth, but for those ends she was intended:
Which were,--and still her offices are known,--
_Law is to give to ev'ry one his own_;
To shore the feeble up against the strong,
To shield the stranger and the poor from wrong.
This was the founder's grave and good intent:
To keep the outcast in his tenement,
To free the orphan from that wolf-like man,
Who is his butcher more than guardian;
To dry the widow's tears, and stop her swoons,
By pouring balm and oil into her wounds.
This was the old way; and 'tis yet thy course
To keep those pious principles in force.
Modest I will be; but one word I'll say,
Like to a sound that's vanishing away,
Sooner the inside of thy hand shall grow
Hisped and hairy, ere thy palm shall know
A postern-bribe took, or a forked fee,
To fetter Justice, when she might be free.
_Eggs I'll not shave_; but yet, brave man, if I
Was destin'd forth to golden sovereignty,
A prince I'd be, that I might thee prefer
To be my counsel both and chancellor.
_Hisped_ (_hispidus_), rough with hairs.
_Postern-bribe_, a back-door bribe.
_Forked fee_, a fee from both sides in a case; cp. Ben Jonson's
_Volpone_: "Give forked counsel, take provoking gold on either hand".
_Eggs I'll not shave_, a proverb.
560. THE WATCH.
Man is a watch, wound up at first, but never
Wound up again: once down, he's down for ever.
