I study to vphold the slippery state of man,
Who dies, when we haue done the best and all we can.
From practise and from bookes, I draw my learnèd skill,
Not from the knowne receipt of 'Pothecaries bill.
The earth my faults doth hide,[139] the world my cures doth see,
What youth, and time effects, is oft ascribde to me.
[Footnote 139: 'The earth my faults doth hide.' This recalls the
somewhat irate remonstrance of a bibulous Sexton under the reproaches
of a medical church-warden at a parish-meeting: "O Sir, _you_ are the
last that ever I expected to expose me, seeing I have covered up many
of your faults" (i.e. in the graves of his patients.) G.]