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All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet

Being Sixty and three in Number. Collected into one Volume by the Author [i.e. John Taylor]: With sundry new Additions, corrected, reuised, and newly Imprinted

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Epigram 13. The deuill take bribery.

A man attach't for murdering of a man,
Vnto the for-man of his Iury sent
Two score angels, begging what he can,
He would his conscience straine, law to preuent:
That his offences Iudge, might iudge no further,
But make manslaughter of his wilfull murther:
The verdict was manslaughter to the Iudge.
The Iudge demanded how it could be so?
The for-man said his conscience much did grudge:
But forty angels did perswade him no.
Well (quoth the Iudge) this case shall murther be,
If halfe those angels not appeare to me.
Thus when the law men to confusion driues,
The godlesse angels will preserue their liues.