! noble truth and sentiment was expressed by the for. mer in a natural manner, in word and phrase simple, perspicuous, and incapable of improvement. What then remained for latter writers, but affectation, witticism, and conceit ? CHAP. VIII. WHAT a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God! it to au wCIT as du were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor mens' gottages princes' palaces. He is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching. Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together; our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues. The sense of death is most in apprehension; How far the little candle throws his beams? So shines a good deed in a naughty world. Love all, trust a few ; Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy Rather Rather in power, than in use: keep thy friend Under thine own life's key: be check'd tor silence, But never tax'd for speech. The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, Our indiscretion sometimes serves as well, When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach us, There's a divinity that shapes our ends, The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to *heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The form of things unknown, the poet's pen, Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd, But to fine issues: nor nature ever lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Both thanks and use. What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted? Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just; And he but naked (tho' lock'd up in steel) Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. VOL. 1. D 3 CHAP. CHAP. IX. OH, world, thy slippery turns! friends now fast sworn, Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart, On a dissention of a doit, break out Whose passions and whose plots have broken their sleep, To take the one the other, by some chance, So it falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth, Cowards die many times before their deaths; It seems to be more strange that men should fear; Will come, when it will come, There is some soul of goodness in things evil, O momen O momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God! Ready with every nod to tumble down, Who shall go about To cozen fortune and to be honourable O that estates, degrees, and offices, Were not derived corruptly, that clear honour Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand, Or wallow naked in December snow, 'Tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states, There is a tide in the affairs of men, Is bound in shallows, and in miseries. To To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty space from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools. The way to dusky death. Out, out brief candle ! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more! It is a tale Told by an ideot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. |