PRUDENCE

Theme no poet gladly sung,

Fair to old and foul to young, Scorn not thou the love of parts, And the articles of arts. Grandeur of the perfect sphere Thanks the atoms that cohere.

WHAT right have I to write on Prudence, whereof I have little, and that of the negative sort? My pru- dence consists in avoiding and going without, not in the inventing of means and methods, not in adroit steering, not in gentle repairing. I have no skill to make money spend well, no genius in my economy; and whoever sees my garden discovers that I must have some other garden. Yet I love facts, and hate lubricity, and people without perception. Then I have the same title to write on prudence that I have to write on poetry or holiness. We write from aspira- tion and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint those qualities which we do not possess. The poet admires the man of energy and tactics; the mer- chant breeds his son for the church or the bar: and where a man is not vain and egotistic, you shall find what he has not by his praise. Moreover, it would be hardly honest in me not to balance these fine lyric Words of Love and Friendship with words of coarser sound, and, whilst my debt to my senses is real and constant, not to own it in passing.

Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of appearances. It is the outmost action of

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