_Ulys._ Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes: These scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: Perséverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue: If you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost.-- Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er run and trampled on: Then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours: For time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; And with his arms out stretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles, And Farewel goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,-- That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds, Though they are made and moulded of things past; And give to dust, that is a little gilt, More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. The present eye praises the present object: Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax; Since things in motion sooner catch the eye, Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee, And still it might, and yet it may again, If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive, And case thy reputation in thy tent; Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves, And drave great Mars to faction.
PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY-COUNCIL, &C.
Since I cannot promise you much of poetry in my play, it is but reasonable that I should secure you from any part of it in my dedication. And indeed I cannot better distinguish the exactness of your taste from that of other men, than by the plainness and sincerity of my address. I must keep my hyperboles in reserve for men of other understandings. An hungry appetite after praise, and a strong digestion of it, will bear the grossness of that diet; but one of so critical a judgment as your lordship, who can set the bounds of just and proper in every subject, would give me small encouragement for so bold an undertaking. I more than suspect, my lord, that you would not do common justice to yourself; and, therefore, were I to give that character of you, which I think you truly merit, I would make my appeal from your lordship to the reader, and would justify myself from flattery by the public voice, whatever protestation you might enter to the contrary. But I find I am to take other measures with your lordship; I am to stand upon my guard with you, and to approach you as warily as Horace did Augustus: