-breakers ever.

You have broke promise twice,
Dear, to undo me,
If you prove faithless thrice
None then will woo ye.

95. TO THE GENEROUS READER.

See and not see, and if thou chance t'espy
Some aberrations in my poetry,
Wink at small faults; the greater, ne'ertheless,
Hide, and with them their father's nakedness.
Let's do our best, our watch and ward to keep;
Homer himself, in a long work, may sleep.

96. TO CRITICS.

I'll write, because I'll give
You critics means to live;
For should I not supply
The cause, th' effect would die.

97. DUTY TO TYRANTS.

Good princes must be pray'd for; for the bad
They must be borne with, and in rev'rence had.
Do they first pill thee, next pluck off thy skin?
_Good children kiss the rods that punish sin_.
Touch not the tyrant; let the gods alone
To strike him dead that but usurps a throne.

_Pill_, plunder.

98. BEING ONCE BLIND, HIS REQUEST TO BIANCA.

When age or chance has made me blind,
So that the path I cannot find,
And when my falls and stumblings are
More than the stones i' th' street by far,
Go thou afore, and I shall well
Follow thy perfumes by the smell;
Or be my guide, and I shall be
Led by some light that flows from thee.
Thus held or led by thee, I shall
In ways confus'd nor slip or fall.

100. NO WANT WHERE THERE'S LITTLE.

To bread and water none is poor;
And having these, what need of more?
Though much from out the cess be spent,
_Nature with little is content_.

_Cess_, the parish assessment for church purposes.

101. BARLEY-BREAK; OR, LAST IN HELL.

We two are last in hell; what may we fear
To be tormented or kept pris'ners here?
Alas! if kissing be of plagues the worst,
We'll wish in hell we had been last and first.

_Barley-break_, a country game resembling prisoners' base. See Note.
_Hell_, the "middle den," the occupants of which had to catch the other
players.

102. THE DEFINITION OF BEAUTY.

Beauty no other thing is than a beam
Flashed out between the middle and extreme.

103. TO DIANEME.

Dear, though to part it be a hell,
Yet, Dianeme, now farewell:
Thy frown last night did bid me go,
But whither only grief does know.
I do beseech thee ere we part,
If merciful as fair thou art,
Or else desir'st that m