[_The Acquittance._] This group of poems is so obviously a group that Hannah's principles of selection in rejecting the present piece and admitting the others may seem unreasonably 'undulating and diverse'. I suppose he thought it rather profane for a bishop even _in futuro_, and perhaps rather ambiguous in other ways. But though King became a bishop there is no chance of my becoming an archdeacon, and I think the piece rather pretty.] _The Forfeiture._ My Dearest, To let you or the world know What debt of service I do truly owe To your unpattern'd self, were to require A language only form'd in the desire Of him that writes. It is the common fate Of greatest duties, to evaporate In silent meaning, as we often see Fires by their too much fuel smother'd be: Small obligations may find vent, and speak, When greater the unable debtor break. 10 And such are mine to you, whose favour's store Hath made me poorer then I was before; For I want words and language to declare How strict my bond, or large your bounties are. Since nothing in my desp'rate fortune found, Can payment make, nor yet the sum compound; You must lose all, or else of force accept The body of a bankrupt for your debt. Then, Love, your bond to execution sue, And take myself, as forfeited to you. 20 [_The Forfeiture._] This piece, which Hannah did not find in his MS., is almost certainly connected with the preceding, and, I think, with _An Acknowledgement_ and _The Departure_, if not also with _A Letter_. The suggested unreality in this _Letter_ disappears to a large extent in them, which is not unnatural.] [Lines: 9-10 An ingenious adaptation of _Curae leves_, &c.] _The Departure. An Elegy._