letter. If they shall not please you, 'tis but fresh subject still for repentance; nor ever did that make me quarrel with anything but my own stars. To swear new oaths from this place were but to weaken the credit of those I have sworn in another. If heaven be to forgive you now for not believing of them then (as sure as it was a sin) heaven forgive me now for swearing of them then (for that was double sin). More than I am I cannot be, nor list,
I. S.
I am not so ill a Protestant as to believe in merit, yet if you please to give answer under your own hand, such as I shall for ever rely upon, if I have not deserv'd it already, it is not impossible but I may.
XXII
Honest Charles,
Were there not fools enow before in the common-wealth of lovers, but that thou must bring up a new sect? Why delighted with the first knots of roses, and when they come to blow, can satisfy the sense, and do the end of their creation, dost not care for them? Is there nothing in this foolish transitory world that thou canst find out to set thy heart upon, but that which has newly left off making of dirt-pies, and is but preparing itself for loam and a green sickness? Seriously (Charles) and without ceremony, 'tis very foolish, and to love widows is as tolerable an humour, and as justifiable as thine; for beasts that have been rid off their legs are as much for a man's use as colts that are unway'd, and will not go at all. Why the devil such young things? Before these understand what thou wouldst have, others would have granted. Thou dost not marry them neither, nor anything else. 'Sfoot, it is the story of the jack-an-apes and the partridges: thou starest after a beauty till it is lost to thee; and then lett'st out another, and starest after that till it is gone too! Never considering that it is here as in the Thames, and that while it runs up in the middle, it runs down on the sides; while thou contemplat'st the coming-in tide and flow of beauty, that it ebbs with thee, and that thy youth goes out at the same time. After all this,
