ore I lesse pittie can bestowe
(Since that my sence, my sorrowe so can sound)
On those in Bedlam that are bound, 60
And scarce feele scourging; and when as I meete
A foole by Children followed in the Streete,
Thinke I (poor wretch) thou from my griefe art free,
Nor couldst thou feele it, should it light on thee;
But that I am a _Christian_, and am taught
By him who with his precious bloud me bought,
Meekly like him my crosses to endure,
Else would they please me well, that for their cure,
When as they feele their conscience doth them brand,
Vpon themselues dare lay a violent hand; 70
Not suffering Fortune with her murdering knife,
Stand like a Surgeon working on the life,
Deserting this part, that ioynt off to cut,
Shewing that Artire, ripping then that gut,
Whilst the dull beastly World with her squint eye,
Is to behold the strange Anatomie.
I am persuaded that those which we read
To be man-haters, were not so indeed,
The Athenian _Timon_, and beside him more
Of which the _Latines_, as the _Greekes_ haue store; 80
Nor not did they all humane manners hate,
Nor yet maligne mans dignity and state.
But finding our fraile life how euery day,
It like a bubble vanisheth away:
For this condition did mankinde detest,
Farre more incertaine then that of the beast.
Sure heauen doth hate this world and deadly too,
Else as it hath done it would neuer doe,
For if it did not, it would ne're permit
A man of so much vertue, knowledge, wit, 90
Of naturall goodnesse, supernaturall grace,
Whose courses when considerately I trace
Into their ends, and diligently looke,
They serue me for Oeconomike booke.
By which this rough world I not onely stemme,
In goodnesse but grow learn'd by reading them.
O pardon me, it my much sorrow is,
Which makes me vse this long Parenthesis;
Had heauen this world not hated as I say,
In height of life it had not, tane away 100
A spirit so braue, so actiue, and so free,
That such a one who would not wish to bee,
Rather then weare a Crowne, by Armes though got,
So fast a friend, so true a Patriot.
In things concerning both the worlds so wise,
Besides so liberall of his faculties,
That whe