home | index | concordance | composite list of variants | help |
To Sir Henry Wootton.
Here's no more new, then virtue, I may as well
Tell Calis,, or Saint Michaels Mount, as tell
That vice doth here habitually dwell.
Yet, as to get stomachs, we walk up and down,
And toyl to sweeten rest; so, may God frown,
If but to loath both, I haunt Court, and Town.
For, here, no one is from th'extremitie
Of vice, by any other reason free,
But that the next to him, still, is worse then he.
In this worlds warfare, they whom rugged Fate,
(Gods Commissary) doth so throughly hate,
As in the Courts Squadron to marshall their state:
If they stand arm'd with silly honesty,
With wishing, prayers, and neat integritie,
Like Indians 'gainst Spanish hosts they be.
Suspicious boldness to this place belongs,
And to have as many ears as all have tongues;
Tender to know, tough to acknowledge wrongs.
Believe me Sir, in my youths giddiest dayes,
When to be like the Court was a players praise,
Playes were not so like Courts, as Courts like Playes.
Then let us at these mimique antiques jeast,
Whose deepest projects are egregeous guests,
And but dull Morals at a game at Chests.

[CW: But]