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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.|
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

[CW: I sum̄e___]