An Acknowledgement.] This is evidently of the same class as the last poem, if not as evidently addressed to the same person. The recipient of the Letter might be of either sex, for 'mistress' in l. 66 (v. sup.) is not quite decisive in the context. This 'precious Friend' is definitely feminine. Nineteenth—I do not know about twentieth—century man would have been a little uncomfortable about receiving from a lady a gold chain with a grouped diamond pendant, welcome as the enclosed 'lock' might be. But, as Scott and others have long ago remarked, there was none of this false pride in the seventeenth, and you might even take money from the beloved. The combination of death's heads, equally of the time, is more of all time.
The Acquittance.
Not knowing who should my acquittance take,
I know as little what discharge to make.
The favour is so great, that it outgoes
All forms of thankfulness I can propose.
Those grateful levies which my pen would raise,
Are stricken dumb, or buried in amaze.
Therefore, as once in Athens there was shown