He who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declares as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best covenant of his fidelity.
Nor aught availed him now to have built in heaven high towers; nor did he scrape by all his engines, but was headlong sent with his industrious crew to build in hell.
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones Forget not.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones,- The labour of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid Under a star-y-pointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness.