Who can, though honour at his gate should stay
In all her masking clothes, send her away,
And cry, Begone, I have no mind to play.
This I confess is a freeman; but it may be said that many persons
are so shackled by their fortune that they are hindered from
enjoyment of that manumission which they have obtained from virtue.
I do both understand, and in part feel the weight of this objection.
All I can answer to it is, "That we must get as much liberty as we
can; we must use our utmost endeavours, and when all that is done,
be contented with the length of that line which is allowed us." If
you ask me in what condition of life I think the most allowed, I
should pitch upon that sort of people whom King James was wont to
call the happiest of our nation, the men placed in the country by
their fortune above an high constable, and yet beneath the trouble
of a justice of the peace, in a moderate plenty, without any just
argument for the desire of increasing it by the care of many
relations, and with so much knowledge and love of piety and
philosophy (that is, of the study of God's laws and of his
creatures) as may afford him matter enough never to be idle though
without business, and never to be melancholy though without sin or
vanity.
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