This comes in last, because he comes behinde
those whom he wrongs, though in his doing so
the diuell cannot him in skill foregoe;
Vnto the last but this, This last I finde
To be as neere alli'd in Basenesse, as
a brother can be to a brother twinne,
in feature, though (as oft) Nature therein:
Proportion them so like, that each doth passe
For other. Only this one difference I note
this last, allow'th more freedome to his tongue
then Enuie doth, and other men are stung
By him more then himselfe; he makes his throate
An open graue, where his contagious breath,
labours to blast the spotlesse fame of such,
whose Reputation it shall chance to touch.
Nor can the hand of Reconciling Death
Free men from this iniurious Monsters sting,
which through the bowels of the earth doth pierce,
and in the quiet vault appeares more fierce
Then Death (the graues sterne tyranizing King.)
Were a man here as free from actuall ill,
as when he first mov'd in his mothers wombe;
or as the man that calls the Heauen his home
Guiltlesse of sinne; yet would this trie his skill.
If in a bul-rush he can finde a knot;
or from pure hony (which the harmlesse Bee
suck'd from those flowers which like it selfe was free)
Straine poison'd iuyce; where if he finde one iot
Which he can iudge doth relish of a weede
(from which the toylsome Bee cheerfully flies,
home to the hiue with hony-laden thighs)
He straite concludes no good can thence proceed.
So strange is the distraction of this Tom
of Bedlam, that all places, times, and men
without distinction seeme alike: for when
The furious rayling fit comes on him, from
His stinking stomacke, hee'le belch forth such geere,
such filth; and with such violence, as though
he meant to cast his rotten garbage: so
He ioyes to make his loathsomnesse appeare.
This (what shall I terme him?) will deuoure your bread,
call you his master, crouch with cap in hand,
professe he falls, if you shall faile to stand;
Yet curse you liuing, ioy when you are dead.
He'le be the Herald of your Infamy,
and scandalize your worth, though you haue bred
him to the shape of man euen from a shred.
This is a blacke-one, full of trechery.