Alas! how deeply painful is all payment!
Take lives—take wives—take aught except men’s purses:
As Machiavel shows those in purple raiment,
Such is the shortest way to general curses.
They hate a murderer much less than a claimant
On that sweet ore which everybody nurses.—
Kill a man’s family, and he may brook it,
But keep your hands out of his breeches’ pocket: