He is a
blown bladder that is only stuffed with wind, and a withered tree that
hath lost the sap of the root, or an old lute with strings all broken,
or a ruined castle that is ready to fall. He is the eyesore of youth and
the jest of love, and in the fulness of infirmity the mirror of misery.
Yet in the honour of wisdom he may be gracious in gravity, and in the
government of justice deserve the honour of reverence. Yea, his word may
be notes for the use of reason, and his actions examples for the
imitation of discretion. In sum, in whatsoever estate he is but as the
snuff of a candle, that pink it ever so long it will out at last.
A YOUNG MAN.
A young man is the spring of time, when nature in her pride shows her
beauty to the world. He is the delight of the eye and the study of the
mind, the labour of instruction and the pupil of reason. His wit is in
making or marring, his wealth in gaining or losing, his honour in
advancing or declining, and his life in abridging or increasing. He is a
bloom that either is blasted in the bud or grows to a good fruit, or a
bird that dies in the nest or lives to make use of her wings. He is a
colt that must have a bridle ere he be well managed, and a falcon that
must be well maned or he will never be reclaimed. He is the darling of
nature and the charge of reason, the exercise of patience and the hope
of charity. His exercise is either study or action, and his study either
knowledge or pleasure. His disposition gives a great note of his
generation, and yet his breeding may either better or worse him, though
to wish a blackamoor white be the loss of labour, and what is bred in
the bone will never out of the flesh.
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