Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/286

188 Is not the rinding up witnesses, And nicking, more than half the bus'ness? Por Matnesses, like watches, go Just as they're set, too fast or slow; And where in conscience they're strait-lac'd, 'Tis ten to one that side is cast. Do not your juries give their verdict As if they felt the cause, not heard it? And as they please make matter o' fact Run all on one side as they're packt? Nature has made man's breast no windores, To publish what he does within-doors; Nor what dark secrets there inhabit, Unless his own rash folly blab it. If oaths can do a man no good In his own bus'ness, why they shou'd In other matters do him hurt, I think there's little reason for't. He that imposes an oath makes it, Not he that for convenience takes it: Then how can any man be said To break an oath he never made? These reasons may perhaps look oddly To th' wicked, tho' they evince the godly; But if they will not serve to clear My honour, I am ne'er the near. Honour is like that glassy bubble, That finds philosophers such trouble; Whose least part crack'd, the whole does fly, And wits are crack'd to find out why.