And feebling such as stand not in their liking,
Below their cobbled shoes.
When drums and trumpets shall
I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be Made all of false-faced soothing!
Ingratitude is monstrous: and for the multitude to be ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude.
The Providence that 's in a watchful state,
Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold;
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps;
Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery in the soul of state;
Which hath an operation more divine,
Than breath, or pen, can give expressure to.
We must not rend our subjects from our laws,
And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each?
A trembling contribution! Why, we take,
From every tree, lop, bark, and part o' the timber;
And, though we leave it with a root, thus hack'd,
The air will drink the sap.
Most pestilent to the hearing; and to bear them,
The back is sacrifice to the load. ...
This makes bold mouths:
Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze Allegiance in them; their curses now
Live, where their prayers did; and it's come to pass, That tractable obedience is a slave
It doth appear: for, upon these taxations,
The clothiers all, not able to maintain
The many to them 'longing, have put off
The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who,
Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger,
And lack of other means, in desperate manner
Daring the event to the teeth, are all in uproar,
And Danger serves among them.
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wis-
Cannot conclude, but by the yea and no
Of general ignorance,-it must omit
Real necessities, and give way the while
To unstable slightness; purpose so barr'd, it follows, Nothing is done to purpose: Therefore, beseech you,
You that will be less fearful than discreet;
That love the fundamental part of state,
More than you doubt the change of 't; that prefer
A noble life before a long, and wish
To jump a body with a dangerous physic,
That's sure of death without it, at once pluck out
The multitudinous tongue, let them not lick
The sweet which is their poison: your dishonour
Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state
Of that integrity which should become it;
Not having the power to do the good it would,
For the ill which doth control it.
It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot,
To curb the will of the nobility:
Suffer it, and live with such as cannot rule,
Nor ever will be ruled.
I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection:
Which if we find outweighs ability,
What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist
To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
(Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down,
And set another up,) should we survey
The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;
Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else,
We fortify in paper, and in figures,
Using the names of men, instead of men:
Like one, that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.a
In cases of defence, 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems:
So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat, with scanting
A little cloth.
It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe:
For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,
(Though war, nor no known quarrel, were in question,)
But that defences, musters, preparations,
Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,
As were a war in expectation.
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be worried; and our nation lose
The name of hardiness, and policy.
They tax our policy, and call it cowardice;
Count wisdom as no member of the war;
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand: the still and mental parts,-
That do contrive how many hands shall strike,
When fitness calls them on; and know, by measure
Of their observant toil, the enemies' weight,-
Why, this hath not a finger's dignity:
They call this-bed-work, mappery, closet-war:
So that the ram, that batters down the wall,
For the great swing and rudeness of his poize,
They place before his hand, that made the engine;
Or those, that with the fineness of their souls.
By reason guide his execution.
How you awake the sleeping sword of war;
We charge you in the name of God, take heed:
For never two such kingdoms did contend,
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,
'Gainst him, whose wrongs give edge unto the swords That make such waste in brief mortality.
Will you again unknit
This churlish knot of all-abhorred war?
And move in that obedient orb again,
Where you did give a fair and natural light;
And be no more an exhaled meteor,
A prodigy of fear, and a portent
Of broached mischief to the unborn times? 18-v. 1.
'Tis better using France, than trusting:
Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas,
Which he hath given for fence impregnable,
And with their helps only defend ourselves;
In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies. 23-iv. 1.
307
The king-becoming graces,
Are justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perséverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude.
That man, that sits within a monarch's heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach,
In shadow of such greatness!
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,
But as the marigold at the sun's eye;
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd.
They do abuse the king that flatter him:
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
The thing the which is flatter'd, but a spark,
To which that breath gives heat and stronger glowing; Whereas reproof, obedient and in order,
Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.
Majesty might never yet endure
The moody frontier of a servant brow.
The strawberry grows underneath the nettle;
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
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