If all be conscience, let conscience bee the foundation of your building, not the glasse, shew effects of conscience, mildnesse in spirit, obedience to Magistrates, loue to thy brethren. Stitch charitie to thy faith, or rip faith from thy works.
If thou wilt deale soberlie without scoffes, thou shalt be answered grauely without iests, yea and of those, whom thou canst not controll for learning, nor accuse for ill life, nor shouldst contemne for authori[ti]e. But if like a restie Iade thou wilt take the bitt in thy mouth, and then runne ouer hedge and ditch, thou shalt be brok[=e] as Prosper broke his horses, with a muzroule, portmouth, and a martingall, and so haue thy head runne against a stone wall.
If thou refuse learning, and sticke to libelling; if nothing come out of those lauish lips, but taunts not without bitternesse, yet without wit; rayling not without spite, yet without cause, then giue me thy hand, thou and I will trie it out at the cuckingstoole. Ile make thee to forget Bishops English, and weep Irish; next hanging, there is no better reuenge on Martin than to make him crie for anger; for there is no more sullen beast than a he drab. Ile make him pull his powting croscloath ouer his beetle browes for melancholie, and then my next booke shall be Martin in his mubble fubbles.
Here I was writing _Finis_ and _Funis_, and determined to lay it by, till I might see more knauerie filde in: within a while appeared olde Martin with a wit worn into the socket, twinkling and pinking like the snuffe of a candle; _quantum mutatus ab illo_, how vnlike the knaue hee was before, not for malice but for sharpnesse.
The hogshead was euen come to the hauncing, and nothing could be drawne from him but dregs: yet the emptie caske sounds lowder than when it was ful; and protests more in his waining, than he could performe in his waxing. I drew neere the sillie soule, whom I found quiuering in two sheetes of protestation paper. O how meager and leane hee lookt, so creast falne, that his combe hung downe to his bill, and had I not been sure it was the picture of enuie, I shoulde haue sworne it had been the image of death, so like the verie Anatomie of mischiefe, that one might see through all the ribbes of his conscience, I began to crosse my selfe, and was readie to say the _Pater noster_, but that I knewe he carde not for it, and so vsed no other wordes, but _abi in malam crucem_, because I knewe, that lookt for him. I came so neere, that I could feele a substantiall knaue from a sprites shadowe.