Page:Gondibert, an heroick poem - William Davenant (1651).djvu/48

 sidering those whom their Eyes but lately left, as they have not time enough to rise for the Publick: and evil successors to power are in the troubled stream of State, like succeeding Tides in Rivers, where the Mud of the former is hidden by the filth of the last.

Laws, if very ancient, grow as doubtfull and difficult as Letters on buried Marble, which onely Antiquaries read; but if not Old, they want that reverence which is therefore paid to the virtues of Ancestors, because their crimes come not to our remembrance; and yet great men must be long dead whose ills are forgotten. If Laws be New, they must be made either by very Angels, or by Men that have some vices; and those being seen make their Virtues suspected; for the People no more esteem able men, whose defects they know, (though but errors incident to Humanitie) than an Enemie values a strong Army having experience of their Errors. And new Laws are held but the projects of necessitous Power, new Nets spred to intangle Us; the Old being accounted too many, since most are believ'd to be made for Forfeitures: and such letting of bloud (though intended by Law-makers for our health) is to the People always out of Season: for those that love life with too much Passion (and Money is the Life-bloud of the People) ever fear a Consumption. But be Law-makers as able as Nature or Experience (which is the best Art) can make them; yet though I will not yield the Wicked to be wiser than the Virtuous, I may say, offences are too hard for the Laws, as some Beasts are too wily for their Hunters; and that Vice over-grows Virtue, as much as Weeds grow faster than Medicinable Herbs: or rather that Sin, like the fruitfull slime of Nilus, doth increase into so many various shapes of Serpents (whose walks and retreats are winding and unknown) that even Justice, (the painfull pursuer of Mischief) is become wearie, and amaz'd.

After these meditations, me thinks Government resembles a Ship, where though Divines, Leaders of Armies, States-men, and Judges are the trusted Pilots; yet it moves