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Epigrams: Divine and Moral

By Sir Thomas Vrchard

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22

5. That a vertuous mind in a deformed body maketh one more beautifull, then a handsome body can doe, endowed with a vicious mind.

External comelinesse few have obtain'd
Without their hurt; it never made one chast:
But many adulterers: and is sustain'd
By qualities, which age, and sicknesse waste:
But that, whose lustre doth the mind adorne,
Surpasseth farre the beauty of the bodie;
For that, we make our selves: to this, we're borne:
This, onely comes by chance: but that by study;
Jt is by vertue then, that wee enjoy
Deservedly the stile of beautifull,
Which neither time, nor Fortune can destroy;
And the deformed body, a faire soule
From dust to glory everlasting caries:
While vicious soules in handsome bodies perish.