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But I must end this letter, Though it doe [224] |
Stand on two Truths, neyther is truth to you. |
Vertue hath some perversenesse for shee will |
Neyther beleeue her good nor others ill. |
Even in |you| Vertues best Paradise, |
Vertue hath some, but wise, degrees of vice: |
Too many Vertues, or too much of one |
Begets on you vniust suspition |
And Ignorance of Vice makes Vertue lesse |
Quenching compassion of our wretchednesse. |
But these are riddles, some aspersion |
Of Vice becomes well some complection. |
Statesmen purge Vice with Vice, and may corrode |
The badd with bad, a Spider with a Toade |
ffor so Ill thralls not them, but they thrall* ill |
And make her doe much good agaynst her will. |
But in |your| Com̄onwealth, or world in you |
Vice hath no office, nor good worke to doe. |
Take then no vitious purge, but bee content |
With cordiall Vertue yor knowne nourishment.| |
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To the Countesse of B. |
at Newyeeres tide. |
|
This Twylight of two yeeres, not past, nor next |
Some Embleme is of mee, or I of this |
Who (Meteor-like of stuff and forme perplext, |
Whose What and where in Disputation is) |
If I should call mee any thing, should misse
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[CW: I sum̄e___] |