THE POEMS OF ISABELLA WHITNEY: A CRITICAL EDITION by ...

Whitney also selected four of Plat's maxims about the
law and lawyers: a person is less deceived if his suit is
denied quickly (Stanza 92); lawyers who plead for the rich
must ignore the truth (Stanza 101); gold is more persuasive
in law than love (Stanza 102); and the poor find little help
in the law (Stanza 104). In the middle of the last three,
she adds that gold makes anyone welcome, regardless of how
it was obtained or whether the person possesses any virtue
or not (Stanza 103). When considered in light of her
warning to her sisters to beware of those who would seek
their harm by "Byll" of indictment ("An order prescribed,"
1. 42), Whitney's choice of Plat's maxims 92, 102, 391, 392,
and 382 as the sources of her stanzas 92 and 101-104 might
indicate that her feelings about the law stemmed from
personal experience, perhaps in relation to the financial
problems she mentions in her other letters.
Looking at the maxims of "A sweet Nosgay" as a whole,
Whitney's selection from and reworking of her source
develops what Panofsky called the "two common themes of
friendship and fortune" (Floures xiii). Her friends had
offered her help and advice during her time of trouble, and
she had found in Plat maxims which showed her just how true
her friends had been. Having worked her way out of her
despair and self-pity, she now chose to repay those friends
by sharing with them the maxims she herself had found to be
true.
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