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EPISTLE TO THE LORD HENRY HOWARD, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRIVY COUNCIL, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Praise, if it be not choice, and laid aright
Last Line: And though it hath not hap, it shall have fame.
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; Howard, Henry (1540-1614); Praise; Truth; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens


Praise, if it be not choice, and laid aright,
Can yield no luster where it is bestowed,
Nor any way can grace the giver's art,
Though 't be a pleasing color to delight,
For that no ground whereon it can be showed
Will bear it well but virtue and desert.
And though I might commend your learning, wit,
And happy utt'rance, and commend them right
As that which decks you much, and gives you grace,
Yet your clear judgment best deserveth it,
Which in your course hath carried you upright,
And made you to discern the truest face
And best complexion of the things that breed
The reputation and the love of men,
And held you in the tract of honesty,
Which ever in the end we see succeed,
Though oft it may have interrupted been,
Both by the times and men's iniquity.
For sure those actions which do fairly run
In the right line of honor still are those
That get most clean and safest to their end,
And pass the best without confusion
Either in those that act or else dispose,
Having the scope made clear whereto they tend;
When this by-path of cunning doth so'embroil
And intricate the passage of affairs
As that they seldom fairly can get out,
But cost, with less success, more care and toil,
Whilst doubt and the distrusted cause impairs
Their courage who would else appear more stout.
For though some hearts are builded so that they
Have divers doors whereby they may let out
Their wills abroad without disturbancy
Int' any course and into ev'ry way
Of humor that affection turns about,
Yet have the best but one t' have passage by,
And that so surely warded with the guard
Of conscience and respect as nothing must
Have course that way but with the certain pass
Of a persuasive right, which being compared
With their conceit, must thereto answer just,
And so with due examination pass;
Which kind of men, raised of a better frame,
Are mere religious, constant and upright,
And bring the ablest hands for any'effect,
And best bear up the reputation, fame,
And good opinion that the action's right,
When th' undertakers are without suspect.
But when the body of an enterprise
Shall go one way, the face another way,
As if it did but mock a weaker trust,
The motion being monstrous cannot rise
To any good, but falls down, to bewray
That all pretenses serve for things unjust;
Especially where th' action will allow
Apparency, or that it hath a course
Concentric with the universal frame
Of men combined, whom it concerneth how
These motions turn and entertain their force,
Having their being resting on the same.
And be it that the vulgar are but gross,
Yet are they capable of truth, and see
(And sometimes guess) the right, and do conceive
The nature of that text that needs a gloss,
And wholly never can deluded be;
All may a few, few cannot all deceive.
And these strange disproportions in the train
And course of things do evermore proceed
From th' ill-set disposition of their minds
Who in their actions cannot but retain
Th' encumbered forms which do within them breed,
And which they cannot show but in their kinds;
Whereas the ways and councils of the light
So sort with valor and with manliness
As that they carry things assuredly,
Undazzling of their own or others' sight,
There being a blessing that doth give success
To worthiness, and unto constancy.
And though sometimes th' event may fall amiss,
Yet shall it still have honor for th' attempt,
When craft begins with fear and ends with shame,
And in the whole design perplexed is.
Virtue, though luckless, yet shall scape contempt,
And though it hath not hap, it shall have fame.





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