God hath impaled' us, on the contrary

Man breaks the fence, and every ground will plough.

O what were man, might he himself misplace!
Sure to be cross1" he would shift feet and face.

V.

Drink not the third" glass, which thou canst not tame

When once it is within thee; (but before

Mayst rule it, as thou list12;) and pour the shame,

Which it would pour on thee, upon the floor.

It is most just to throw that on the ground,
Which would throw me there, if I keep the round. 13

VI.

He that is drunken may his mother kill11

Big with his sister: he hath lost the reins,

13

9. impaled, in Herbert's time was used for fencing in with palings, rather than as now for putting to death by fixing on a stake. 10. To be cross; i.e. contrary, compare stanza lxvi.

12.

II. The third glass is put for any cup that will cause excess. "Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil.” Othello act ii, sc. 3. Elsewhere in the same play, Shakespeare tells us what was our countrymen's repute. "In England they are most potent in potting. Your Dane, your German, your swag-bellied Hollander are nothing to your Englishman." i.e., mayst list. 13. i.e., keep passing the bottle round. To what excess the fashion of drinking must have then prevailed, may be seen in quotations given from contemporary authors in Chamber's Day Book, Nov. 1, and in an extract from Heywood's Philocothonista, in Brande's Popular Antiquities vol. ii, p. 377. Even King Charles II. issued a proclamation against these excesses. It is recorded that "he that first invented the use of drinking healths, had his brains beat out with a pottle-pot.

14. Some such brutalities are related by historians of Cambyses and of Nero. Allusion may be made to the story of a youth whom Satan tempted to kill his mother. The horrible proposal was indignantly resented. Then Satan tempted him to kill

ii. Temper

ance.

Is outlaw'd by himself; all kind of ill15
Did with his liquor slide into his veins.

The drunkard forfeits Man, and doth divest16
All worldly" right, save what he hath by beast.18

VII.

Shall I, to please another's wine-sprung19 mind, Lose all mine own? God hath given me a measure Short of his can," and body; must I find

A pain in that, wherein he finds a pleasure?

Stay at the third glass if thou lose thy hold,
Then thou art modest," and the wine grows bold.

VIII.

If reason move not Gallants, quit the room; (All in a shipwreck shift their several way)

his sister, which was likewise spurned; next he tempted him with drunkenness, and the youth yielded as to what he thought a venial offence, and he came home mad-drunk, and in his fury killed his mother, then with child of a daughter. Ryley's Notes. 1745. 15. For examples Noah, Lot, Nabal, Amnon, Belshazzar, Holofernes, Cambyses, Philip, Alexander. 16. Divest here

used like a Latin verbum exuendi with a second accusative. We

now say divest of. 17. All worldly right i.e. all right in the world, every privilege on earth. 18. So poor Cassio confesses of himself, "O! I have lost my reputation. I have lost the im

mortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial."

19. So in semi-slang a tipsy man is said to be "sprung;" so a bat that is not sound; or a ship springs a leak, and lets in the water. 20. his can i.e. the wine-sprung man's. 21. Moral excellence requires due consideration of time, place, and person. Virtue out of season is not virtue. Modesty, admirable at one time, may be cowardice at another. The timidity which dares not resist, and is here called modesty, should give place to a firm boldness before "the devil drunkenness."

Let not a common ruin thee intomb:
Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay,

Stay at the third cup, or forego the place.

Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface.22

IX.

Yet, if thou sin in wine or wantonness,

Boast not thereof; nor make thy shame thy glory.23
Frailty gets pardon by submissiveness;*4

But he that boasts, shuts that out of his story.

He makes flat war with God, and doth defy
With his poor clod of earth the spacious sky.

X.

Take not His Name, Who made thy mouth, in vain:
It gets thee nothing, and hath no excuse.
Lust and wine plead a pleasure, avarice gain:
But the cheap swearer through his open sluice

Lets his soul run for nought, as little fearing:26
Were I an Epicure," I could bate swearing.

22. Because it destroys the reasonable part of man, wherein he is "in the image of God."

23. "Whose god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame." Philip. iii. 19. 24. So Cassio reproaching himself in shame "I drunk!" is comforted by the plea of common frailty; "You or any man living may be drunk at some time, man. But higher than any such worldly apology is the thought of the love of our Heavenly Father, who, when his prodigal son is yet a great way off, has compassion on him when he is returning in penitent sub

missiveness.

25. cheap in the sense of common, careless, easy, worthless, vile; compare stanza xii. 26. i.e. having no reverence. 27. An Epicure for Epicurean i.e. one who makes self-pleasing the rule of life; or it may here be used only for a luxurious man; as in Macbeth: "then fly false thanes and mingle with the English epicures."

iii. Evil Speak

ing.

iv. Lying.

XI.

When thou dost tell another's jest, therein
Omit the oaths; which true wit cannot need:
Pick out of tales the mirth, but not the sin.
He pares his apple that will cleanly feed.

Play not away the virtue of that Name,28
Which is thy best stake, when griefs make thee tame.

XII.

The cheapest sins most dearly" punish'd are;
Because to shun them is so cheap;
For we have wit to mark them, and to spare."
O crumble not away thy soul's fair heap.""

31

If thou wilt die, the gates of hell are broad:
Pride and full sins have made the way a road.

XIII.

Lie not; but let thy heart be true to God,

33

Thy mouth to it, thy actions to them both:

28. The poet would say that the virtue or power of God's Name is a trump card, a stake not to be played away, but to be held in the hand to win against all the sorrows and temptations of life. It is in the hour of grief that God's name rightly used in prayer will turn all to triumphs, or trumps, for the two words are the same.

29. cheapest, see note 25. 30. dearly, opposed to cheapest; meaning at the highest rate,' as we say "to pay dearly for an error;" compare such expressions as "my dearest foe," "my father hated his father dearly," and "shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death." Shakespeare. 31. i.e. wit enough and to spare. 32. i.e. ex granis acervus: do not by repeated little sins wear away the accumulation of grace in the soul. If a man is bent on ruin, he can secure it by some one great crime. The road to ruin is no bye-way; it has been widened and made the "broad road" by the many full-blown sins that have travelled over it to destruction.

33. When the heart is true to God, there needs no check upon

Cowards tell lies, and those that fear the rod;
The stormy working soul spits lies and froth.35

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie:
A fault, which needs it most grows two thereby.

XIV.

Fly idleness, which yet thou canst not fly-36
By dressing, mistressing," and complement.
If those take up thy day, the sun will cry
Against thee; for his light was only lent.38

God gave thy soul brave wings; put not those
feathers

Into a bed, to sleep out all ill weathers.

v. Indolence.

its utterance; but when untrue to God, its bad thoughts must still
be repressed in silence. Yet how often this makes us feel hypo-
crites. A heart true to God is the cure for hypocrisy. 34. "The
great violation of the point of honour from man to man is giving
the lie.
The reason perhaps may be because no other vice
implies a want of courage so much as telling a lie; and therefore
telling a man he lies, is touching him in the most sensible part
of honour, and indirectly calling him a coward." Spectator 99.
35. "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest,
whose waters cast up mire and dirt." Isaiah lvii, 20.

36. Occupation is not work. Employment in vanity is only idleness. 37. Mistressing, i.e. waiting upon ladies, flirting: complement in this sense we now write compliment. The whole line is a quotation from his dear friend and brother poet, Dr. Donne, Dean of S. Paul's.

"As if their day were only to be spent,

In dressing, mistressing and complement."

38. lent i.e. not given to us to do as we like with as our own. 39. i.e. the affections and emotions and instincts, which would naturally be active.