No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back- wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
I do I know not what, and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe. What is decreed must be; and be this so.
Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore, should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes, it were no sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him outlive the day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.
I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.