Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow.

[blocks in formation]

A gibing spirit,

36-ii. 2.

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace,
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.

156

8-v. 2.

Tried fidelity.

He that can endure

To follow with allegiance a fallen lord,

Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
And earns a place i' the story.

157

30-iii. 11.

Danger of exaltation.

Our virtues

Lie in the interpretation of the time;
And power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
To extol what it hath done.¶

28-iv. 7.

[blocks in formation]

Men

Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief,
Which they themselves not feel; but tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ache with air, and agony with words:
No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow;
But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency,

To be so moral, when he shall endure
The like himself.

159

Theory and Practice.

There was never yet philosopher,

That could endure the tooth-ache patiently;

6-v. 1.

That is, exaltation, by exciting envy, often is the grave of power, and sinks fame in oblivion.

However, they have writ the style of gods,

r

And made a pish at chance and sufferance. 6-v. 1.

160

Cold friendship.

Thou dost conspire against thy friend,

If thou but think'st him wrong'd, and mak'st his ear A stranger to thy thoughts.

161

Deceptive obedience.

37-iii. 3.

It is the curse of kings to be attended By slaves, that take their humours for a warrant ;And, on the winking of authority,

To understand a law; to know the meaning

Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns More upon humour than advised respect.

162

Prudence.

16-iv. 2.

Who buys a minute's mirth, to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?

For one sweet grape, who will the vine destroy?
Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,

Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?

163

Authority.

Authority, though it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the vice o' the top.

Poems.

5-ii. 2.

[blocks in formation]

To be possess'd with double pomp,
To guards a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue

26-v. 11.

r The style of gods, means, an exalted language; such as we may suppose would be written by beings superior to human calamities, and therefore regarding them with neglect and coldness.

s Lace.

Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful, and ridiculous excess.

[blocks in formation]

16-iv. 2.

The king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him, as it doth to me; the element shews to him, as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. 20-iv. 1.

167

Men often blind to their faults.
Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear,
Their own transgressions partially they smother:
O! how are they wrapt in with infamies,
That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes!

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

There is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some of beguiling virgins with the broken seal of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law, and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God:" war is his beadle, war is his vengeance; so that here men are punished, for beforebreach of the king's laws, in now the king's quarrel: where they feared the death, they have borne life away; and, where they would be safe, they perish." Then, if they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of their damnation, than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his own. 20-iv. 1.

t Qualities.

"Isa. x. &c., that is, punishment in their native country.

w Matt. x. 39, and xvi. 25.

169

Man different only in exterior.

Though mean and mighty, rotting

Together, have one dust; yet reverencex

(That angel of the world) doth make distinction Of place 'tween high and low.

[blocks in formation]

Kings, and mightiest potentates, must die;
For that's the end of human misery.

171

Unwelcome news, thankless.

The first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.

[blocks in formation]

As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,
In my opinion, ought to be prevented.

[blocks in formation]

31-iv. 2.

21-iii. 2.

19-i. 1.

.

24-ii.

Nothing can we call our own, but death;
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

174

Conflict of Grace.

17-iii. 2.

The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace,
For there it revels, and when that decays,
The guilty rebel for remission prays.

[blocks in formation]

The ample proposition, that hope makes

In all designs begun on earth below,

Poems.

Fails in the promised largeness: checks and disasters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd:

As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,

Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.

[blocks in formation]

x Reverence, or due regard to subordination, is the power that keeps peace and order in the world.

Why then

Do

you

with cheeks abash'd behold our works;

And think them shames, which are, indeed, nought

else

But the protractive trials of great Jove,
To find persistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune's love: for then, the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affined" and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass, or matter, by itself
Lies, rich in virtue, and unmingled.

26-i. 3.

[blocks in formation]

I held it ever,

Virtue and cunninga were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs
May the two latter darken and expend;
But immortality attends the former,
Making a man a god.

177

Glory and Wealth, their temptation.

33-iii. 2.

O, the fierceb wretchedness that glory brings us!
Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
Since riches point to misery and contempt?
Who'd be so mock'd with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship?

To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?

[blocks in formation]

27-iv. 2.

Not by the old gradation, where each second

Stood heir to the first.

37-i. 1.

z Joined by affinity. a Knowledge. b Hasty, precipitate.

c By recommendation from powerful friends.
a Gradation, established by ancient practice.

D

« AnteriorContinuar »