HERMAN. If I were sure that you used that title out of malice, it would go hard with you.
HENRICH. No, indeed, I didn't, master, but it's hard to get things straight again so quickly.
HERMAN. Take hands, you two. So, that's the way. To-morrow we shall have a wedding. Henrich!
HENRICH. Mr. Burgomaster—Beg your pardon, I mean master!
HERMAN. Burn up all my political books, for I can't have them before my eyes any more, after the foolish ideas they put into my head. (To the audience.)
To take the leading statesman's part
Is harder far than sneering,
For squinting at a seaman's chart
Is not the whole of steering:
With books on politics at hand
A dolt may criticise,
But judging right our fatherland
Is only for the wise.
All craftsmen who have seen my fate,
Pray, profit by its ending:
Though all's not sound within the state,
That's not our kind of mending.
And when we drop our humble tools
And set us up as thinkers,
We look the sorry lot of fools
That statesmen would as tinkers.
ERASMUS MONTANUS OR RASMUS BERG
A COMEDY IN FIVE ACTS
1731