So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity,
That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lacky her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.
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.
For liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands.
Daughter to that good Earl, once President Of England's Council, and her Treasury, Who lived in both, unstained with gold or fee, And left them both, more in himself content, Till sad the breaking of that Parliament Broke him, as that dishonest victory At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, Killed with report that old man eloquent. Though later born than to have known the days Wherein your father flourished, yet by you, Madam, methinks I see him living yet; So well your words his noble virtues praise, That all both judge you to relate them true, And to possess them, honoured Margaret.