244 The Duchess of Newcastle 



poor, but to see that the poor be not cousened of 

 their gifts, wherefore they ought to distribute their 

 gifts themselves, and to be industrious to know and to 

 find out those that do truly and not feignedly want, 

 neither must their gifts make the poor idle, but set 

 the idle poor a-work, and as for those that cannot 

 work or help themselves, as the old, sick, decrepit, 

 and children, they must be maintained by those that 

 have means and strength and health to attend them. 

 But percha.nce if the Lady P. Y. heard me, she would 

 say, I was one of those that did speak more good 

 words, than act good deeds, or that I neither spent 

 my time in praying nor pious acting; indeed I cannot, 

 as the proud Pharisee, brag and boast of my good 

 deeds, but with the poor publican, I must say. Lord, 

 have mercy on me, a miserable sinner. Yet I must 

 say thus much truth of my self, that I never had 

 much to give; for before the warrs of this country 

 I was too young to be rich, or to have means in my 

 own power of disposing, and since the warrs all my 

 friends being so ruined, and my husband banished 

 from his native countrey, and dispossest of his 

 inherited estate, I have been in a condition rather to 

 receive, than to give: yet I have not done much of 

 either, for tiiily I am as glad not to receive, as sorry 

 not to give, for obligation is as great a burden to me, 

 as not be able to oblige is an unhappiness. Not that I 

 account it so great an unhappiness to be in such a 

 condition, as to be fit to receive, but to receive in such 

 a condition, as not to be able to return the obligation, 

 for the truth is, I had rather suffer for want, than 

 take to be relieved; but I thank God, I have not had 

 many of those burdens of obligations. Some few I 

 have had, but those were from my near relative 

 friends, not from strangers, which is a double, nay, a 



