BOOKS AND THIEVES
A good book steals the mind from vain pretences,
From wicked cogitations and offences;
It makes us know the world's deceiving pleasures,
And set our hearts on never-ending treasures.
So when thieves steal our cattle, coin, or ware,
It makes us see how mutable they are:
Puts us in mind that we should put our trust
Where felon cannot steal or canker rust.
Bad books through eyes and ears do break and enter,
And take possession of the heart's frail centre,
Infecting all the little kingdom man
With all the poisonous mischief that they can,
Till they have robbed and ransacked him of all
Those things which men may justly goodness call;
Rob him of virtue and of heavenly grace,
And leave him beggared in a wretched state.
So of our earthly goods, thieves steal the best,
And richest jewels, and leave us the rest.
Men know not thieves from true men by their looks,
Nor by their outsides no man can know books.
Both are to be suspected, all can tell,
And wise men, ere they trust, will try them well:
Some books not worth the reading for their fruits,
Some thieves not worth the hanging, for their suits.
And as with industry, and art, and skill
One thief doth daily rob another still,
So one book from another, in this age,
Steals many a line, a sentence, or a page.
And as the veriest thief may have some friend
So the worst books some knave will still defend.
Still books and thieves in one conceit do join,
For, if you mark them, they are all for coin.
J. Taylor. An Arrant Thief.