_See here the state of man as in a glass_,
_And how the fashion of this world doth pass_.
Some in a tavern spend the longest day,
While others hawk and hunt the time away.
Here one his mistress courts; another dances;
A third incites to lust by wanton glances.
This wastes the day in dressing; the other seeks
To set fresh colours on her with red cheeks,
That, when the sun declines, some dapper spark
May take her to Spring Garden or the park.
Plays some frequent, and balls; others their prime
Consume at dice; some bowl away their time.
With cards some wholly captivated are;
From tables others scarce an hour can spare.
One to soft music mancipates his ear;
At shovel-board another spends the year.
The Pall Mall this accounts the only sport;
That keeps a racket in the tennis-court.
Some strain their very eyes and throats with singing,
While others strip their hands and backs at ringing.
Another sort with greedy eyes are waiting
Either at cock-pit or some great bull-baiting.
This dotes on running-horses; t’other fool
Is never well but in the fencing-school.
Wrestling and football, nine-pins, prison-base,
Among the rural clowns find each a place.
Nay, Joan unwashed will leave her milking-pail
To dance at May-pole, or a Whitsun ale.
Thus wallow most in sensual delight,
As if their day should never have a night,
Till Nature’s pale-faced sergeant them surprise,
And as the tree then falls, just so it lies.
Now look at home, thou who these lines dost read,
See which of all these paths thyself dost tread,
And ere it be too late that path forsake,
Which, followed, will thee miserable make.
After I had thus enumerated some of the many vanities in which the
generality of men misspent their time, I sang the following ode in praise
of virtue:—
Wealth, beauty, pleasures, honours, all adieu;
I value virtue far, far more than you.
You’re all but toys
For girls and boys
To play withal, at best deceitful joys.
She lives for ever; ye are transitory,
Her honour is unstained; but your glory
Is mere deceit—
A painted bait,
Hung out for such as sit at Folly’s gate.
True peace, content, and joy on her attend;
You, on the contrary, your forces bend
To blear men’s eyes
With fopperies,
Which fools embrace, but wiser men despise.
About this time my father, resolving to sell his estate, and having
reserved for his own use such parts of his household goods as he thought
fit, not willing to take upon himself the trouble of selling the rest,
gave them unto me; whereupon I went down to Crowell, and having before
given notice there and thereabouts that I intended a public sale of them,
I sold them, and thereby put some money into my pocket. Yet I sold such
things only as I judged useful, leaving the pictures and armour, of which
there was some store there, unsold.
Not long after this my father sent for me to come to him at London about
some business, which, when I came there, I understood was to join with
him in the sale of his estate, which the purchaser required for his own
satisfaction and safety, I being then the next heir to it in law. And
although I might probably have made some advantageous terms for myself by
standing off, yet when I was satisfied by counsel that there was no
entail upon it or right of reversion to me, but that he might lawfully
dispose of it as he pleased, I readily joined with him in the sale
without asking or having the least gratuity or compensation, no, not so
much as the fee I had given to counsel to secure me from any danger in
doing it.
There having been some time before this a very severe law made against
the Quakers by name, and more particularly prohibiting our meetings under
the sharpest penalties of five pounds for the first offence so called,
ten pounds for the second, and banishment for the third, under pain of
felony for escaping or returning without license—which law was looked
upon to have been procured by the bishops in order to bring us to a
conformity to their way of worship—I wrote a few lines in way of dialogue
between a Bishop and a Quaker, which I called