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Herbert SONNET NO. 4          Unthrifty loveliness, why does thou  spend,        Upon thy self  thy beauty's legacy  ?        Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend        And being frank she lends to those are free:        Then beauteous niggard  why does thou  abuse,        The bounteous largess  given thee  to give?        Profitless usurer , why dost thou  use        So great a sum of sums yet can'st not live?        Yet  having traffic with thy  self  alone,        Thou of thy self- thy sweet self dost deceive,        Then how when nature call thee to be gone,        What acceptable audit can'st thou  leave?        Thy unused  beauty must be tombed with thee,        Which used lives thy executor   to be.

• 
    Note the legal terms used in this sonnet-legacy-bequest-
  largesse-usurer-executor.
    Note the repetition of the following words, we find-thyself,
  thyself, thyself, thee, thee, thee, thou, thou, thou, thou, thou,
  (see 6).
  
    Here Bacon complains that Herbert who has received a
  legacy of beauty spends it only on himself-that  nature's bequest
  -the power to have children-she lends to all people who are
  free to use it.  He calls Herbert a beautiful niggard (one who
  grudges to spend or give away) and tells him that he abuses
  (makes a bad use of) the bountiful largess (bestowal of gifts)
  given to him by nature-that he is a profitless usurer (someone
  who lends without receiving any profit) yet he lives alone and
  deceives himself-that when he dies (when nature calls him to
  be gone) he cannot leave an account which would be acceptable-
  that he has not used the beauty which nature has given to him
  which is buried in himself, that if he had used it it would have
  lived in his executor.
  
  

   

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