Man is a vagabond both poor and proud,
He treads on beasts who give him clothes and food;
But the Gods catch him wheresoe’er he lurks,
Whip him, and set him to all painful works:
And yet he brags he shall be crown’d when dead.
Were ever Princes in a Bridewell bred?
Nothing is sinfully begot but he:
Can base-born Bastards lawful Sovereigns be?
Crowne.
25.
Wishes for Obscurity.
How miserable a thing is a Great Man!—
Take noisy vexing Greatness they that please;
Give me obscure and safe and silent ease.
Acquaintance and commerce let me have none
With any powerful thing but Time alone:
My rest let Time be fearful to offend,
And creep by me as by a slumbering friend;
Till, with ease glutted, to my bed I steal,
As men to sleep after a plenteous meal.
Oh wretched he who, call’d abroad by power,
To know himself can never find an hour!
Strange to himself, but to all others known,
Lends every one his life, but uses none;
So, e’er he tasted life, to death he goes;
And himself loses, e’er himself he knows.
Crowne.
26.
Mind constituted to Goodness.
—— you may do this, or any thing you have a mind to; even in your fantasy there is a secret counsel, seeing that all your actions, nay all your pleasures, are in some exercise of virtue— H. Killigrew.
27.
Returned Pilgrim.