Brave resolution, and divine discourse. XIX. Chapman. There is nothing more prejudicial to the grandeur of buildings, than to abound in angles; a fault obvious in many, and owing to an inordinate thirst for variety, which, whenever it prevails, is sure to leave very little true taste.-Burke. XX. A man's self gives haps or mishaps even as he ordereth his heart.-Sir P. Sidney. XXI. Repentance is a magistrate that exacts the strictest duty and humility, because the reward it gives is inestimable and everlasting; and the pain and punishment it redeems men from, is of the same continuance, and yet intolerable.-Clarendon. XXII. Charters are kept when their purposes are maintained: they are violated when the privilege is supported against its end and its object.-Burke. XXIII. Silence in Love bewrays more wo XXIV. Sir W. Raleigh. I cannot allow poetry to be more divine in its effects than in its causes, nor any operation produced by it to be more than purely natural, or to deserve any other sort of wonder, than those of music, or of natural magic, however any of them have appeared to minds little versed in the speculations of nature, of occult qualities, and the force of numbers or of sounds. Whoever talks of drawing down the moon from heaven, by force of verse or of charms, either believes not himself, or too easily believes what others told him; or perhaps follows an opinion begun by the practice of some poet, upon the facility of some people; who knowing the time when an eclipse would happen, told them he would by his charms call down the moon at such an hour, and was by them thought to have performed it.-Sir W. Temple. XXV. Love's hory flame for ever burneth; At times deceived, at times opprest. Then hath in heaven its perfect rest: What is mine, even to my life, is hers I love; but the secret of my friend is not mine.-Sir P. Sidney. XXVII. Than in England, there is no where more true zeal in the many forms of devotion, and yet no where more knavery under the shows and pretences: there are no where so many disputers upon religion, so many reasoners upon government, so many refiners in politics, so many curious inquisitives, so many pretenders to business and state employments, greater porers upon books, nor plodders after wealth; and yet no where more abandoned libertines, more refined luxurists, extravagent debauchees, conceited galiants, more dabblers in poetry as well as politics, in philosophy, and in chemistry.-Sir W. Temple. XXVIII. Be careful to make friendship the child, and not the father of virtue; for many strongly knit minds are rather good friends than good men; so, although they do not like the evil their friend does, yet they like him who does the evil; and though no counsellors of the offence, they yet protect the offender.-Sir P. Sidney. XXIX. Death is natural to man, but slavery unnatural; and the moment you strip a man of his liberty; you strip him of all his virtues; you convert his heart into a dark hole, into which all the vices conspire against you.Burke. XXX. If all the world and Love were young, Sir W Raleigh-Answer to Marlowe's XXXI. Thinking nurseth thinking.-Sidney. XXXII. Let Solomon pronounce what he will, the drunkard will never be terrified with the fear of beggary, whilst he sees rich and great men affected with the same pleasure with which he is delighted and reproached, and to whom it may be he stands more commended by his faculty in drinking than he would be by the practice of any particular virtue.-Clarendon. XXXIII. A wise riche man is like the backe or stocke of the chimney, and his wealth the fire; he receives it not for his own need, but to reflect the heat to other's good. Sir T. Overbury. : XXXIV. This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning; under what name soever it be directed, the final end is, to lead and draw us to as high perfection as our degenerate souls (made worse by their clay lodgings) can be capable of. This, according to the inclinations of man, bred many-formed impressions for some that thought this felicity principally to be gotten by knowledge, and no knowledge to be so high or heavenly as to be acquainted with the stars, gave themselves to astronomy: others, persuading themselves to be demi-gods, if they knew the causes of things, became natural and supernatural philosophers: some, an admirable delight drew to music: and some the certainty of demonstrations, to the mathematics: but all, one and other, having this scope TO KNOW, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the dungeon of the body, to the enjoying of its own divine essence. But when, by the balance, of experi ence, it was found that the astronomer, looking to the stars, might fall into a ditch, that the inquiring philo. sopher might be blind to himself; and the mathematician might draw forth a strait line with a crooked heart; then, lo! did Proof, the over-ruler of opinions, make manifest that all these are but serving sciences; which, as they are all directed to the highest aim of the mistress-knowledge; knowledge of a man's self, in the ethic and politic consideration, with the end of well-doing, and not of well-knowing only so the ending of all earthly learning, being virtuous action, those skills that most serve to bring forth that, have a most just title to be princes over the rest.-Sir P. Sidney. XXXV. Passions are likened best to floods and streams; They that are rich in words must needs discover, XXXVI. Whatsoever the base man finds evil in his own soul he can with ease lay upon another.-Sir P. Sidney. XXXVII. Celestial Happiness! Whene'er she stoops XXXVIII. Young. Humour is but a picture of particular life, as comedy is of general; and though it represents dispositions and customs less common, yet they are not less natural than those that are more frequent among men; for if humour itself be forced, it loses all the grace; which has been indeed the fault of some of our poets most celebrated in this kind.-Sir W. Temple. XXXIX. The mortal that drinks is the only brave fellow, Though never so poor, he's a king when he's mellow; Grows richer than Croesus with whimsical thinking, And never knows care whilst he follows his drinking. E. Ward. XL. If our credit be so well built, so firm, that it is not easy to be shaken by calumny or insinuation, envy then commends us, and extols us, beyond reason, to those upon whom we depend, till they grow jealous, and so blow us up when they cannot throw us down.-Clarendon. XLI. Cowards fear to die; but courage stout, On the snuff of a candle-Sir W. Raleigh. |