Too soon they are Parents to themselves: for what
Are Tutors, Guardians, and so forth, compared
With Nature’s genial Genitors? so that
A child of Chancery, that Star-Chamber ward,
(I’ll take the likeness I can first come at,)
Is like—a duckling by Dame Partlett reared,
And frights—especially if ’tis a daughter,
Th’ old Hen—by running headlong to the water.