"SECOND SHEPHERD.
"With conscience proof 'gainst Satan's shock,
Albeit finer than her smock, {50a}
Marry! her smiles are not of vanity,
But resting on sound Christianity.
Faith, you would swear, had nail'd {50b} her ears on
The book and cushion of the parson."
"Methinks the rhyme at the latter end might be bettered," said Sir
Thomas. "The remainder is indited not unaptly. But, young man,
never having obtained the permission of my honourable dame to praise
her in guise of poetry, I cannot see all the merit I would fain
discern in the verses. She ought first to have been sounded; and it
being certified that she disapproved not her glorification, then
might it be trumpeted forth into the world below."
"Most worshipful knight," replied the youngster, "I never could take
it in hand to sound a dame of quality,--they are all of them too
deep and too practised for me, and have better and abler men about
'em. And surely I did imagine to myself that if it were asked of
any honourable man (omitting to speak of ladies) whether he would
give permission to be openly praised, he would reject the
application as a gross offence. It appeareth to me that even to
praise one's self, although it be shameful, is less shameful than to
throw a burning coal into the incense-box that another doth hold to
waft before us, and then to snift and simper over it, with maidenly,
wishful coyness, as if forsooth one had no hand in setting it
asmoke.
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