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HONOR and shame from no condition rise; | |
| Act well your part, there all the honor lies. | |
| Fortune in men has some small difference made, | |
| One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; | |
| The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned, | 5 |
| The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned. | |
| “What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl?” | |
| I ’ll tell you, friend; a wise man and a fool. | |
| You ’ll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, | |
| Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, | 10 |
| Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; | |
| The rest is all but leather or prunella. | |
| Stuck o’er with titles, and hung round with strings, | |
| That thou mayst be by kings, or whores of kings; | |
| Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, | 15 |
| In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece; | |
| But by your fathers’ worth if yours you rate, | |
| Count me those only who were good and great. | |
| Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood | |
| Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, | 20 |
| Go! and pretend your family is young, | |
| Nor own your fathers have been fools so long. | |
| What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? | |
| Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards. * * * * * | |
| Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, | 25 |
| Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. | |
| Who noble ends by noble means obtains, | |
| Or, failing, smiles in exile or in chains, | |
| Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed | |
| Like Socrates, that man is great indeed. | 30 |
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