ght! Why should you?
What merit to be dropped on fortune's hill?
The honour is to mount it. You'd have done it;
For you were trained to knowledge, industry,
Frugality, and honesty,--the sinews
That surest help the climber to the top,
And keep him there. I have a clerk, Sir Thomas,
Once served your father; there's the riddle for you.
Humph! I may thank you for my life to-day.

_Clif_. I pray you say not so.

_Wal_. But I will say so!
Because I think so, know so, feel so, sir!
Your fortune, I have heard, I think, is ample!
And doubtless you live up to't?

_Clif_. 'Twas my rule,
And is so still, to keep my outlay, sir,
A span within my means.

_Wal_. A prudent rule!
The turf is a seductive pastime!

_Clif_. Yes.

_Wal_. You keep a racing stud? You bet?

_Clif_. No, neither.
'Twas still my father's precept--"Better owe
A yard of land to labour, than to chance
Be debtor for a rood!"

_Wal_. 'Twas a wise precept.
You've a fair house--you'll get a mistress for it?

_Clif_. In time!

_Wal_. In time! 'Tis time thy choice were made.
Is't not so yet? Or is thy lady love
The newest still thou seest?

_Clif_. Nay, not so.
I'd marry, Master Walter, but old use--
For since the age of thirteen I have lived
In the world--has made me jealous of the thing
That flattered me with hope of profit. Bargains
Another would snap up, might be for me:
Till I had turned and turned them! Speculations,
That promised, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty,
Ay, cent-per-cent. returns, I would not launch in,
When others were afloat, and out at sea;
Whereby I made small gains, but missed great losses.
As ever, then, I looked before I leaped,
So do I now.

_Wal_. Thou'rt all the better for it!
Let's see! Hand free--heart whole--well-favoured--so!
Rich, titled! Let that pass!--kind, valiant, prudent--
Sir Thomas, I can help thee to a wife,
Hast thou the luck to win her!

_Clif_. Master Walter!
You jest!

_Wal_. I do not jest. I like you! mark--
I like you, and I like not everyone!
I say a wife, sir, can I help you to,
The pearly texture of whose dainty skin
Alone were worth thy baronetcy! Form
And feature has she, wherein move and glow
The charms, that in the marble, cold and still,
Culled by the sculptor's jealous skill and joined there,
Inspire us! Sir, a maid, before whose feet,
A duke--a duke might lay his coronet,
To lift her to his state, and partner her!
A fresh heart too!--a young fresh heart