The other, at high wish. Best state, contentless,
Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
Worse than the worst, content.b

214

Treason, silent in its operations.

27-iv. 3.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep;
And in his simple show he harbours treason.
The fox barks not, when he would steal the lamb.

215

Malice, its extent.

22-iii. 1.

To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs;
Like wrath in death, and envyc afterwards.

216

Good

The value of a good name.

name, in man, and woman,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:d

.

29-ii. 1.

Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands: But he, that filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that, which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

217

Slander, certain in its aim.

Slander,

Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,e

Transports his poison'd shot.

218

Peasant and Courtier.

37-iii. 3.

36-iv. 1.

The age is grown so picked,f that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.

219

A tide in human life.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

36-v. 1.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows, and in miseries :

b Best states contentless have a wretched being-a being worse than

that of the worst states that are content.

c Malice.

d Prov. xxii. 1.

e Mark.

f Spruce, affected.

And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

29-iv. 3.

When fortune means to men most good,
She looks upon them with a threatening eye.

221

Natural defects impair virtues.

Oft it chances in particular men,

16-iii. 4.

That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin,)

By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,"
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners;-that these men,—
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect;
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,"
Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo)

h

Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault: The dram of base
Doth all the noble substance often dout,i
To his own scandal.k

36-i. 4.

Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And pursy Insolence shall break his wind,

With fear and horrid flight.

223

27-v. 5.

Riches not true which are to be courted.

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,

Brags of his substance, not of ornament:

They are but beggars that can count their worth.

A grandam's name is little less in love,

Than is the doting title of a mother;

35-ii. 6.

They are as children, but one step below. 24-iv. 4.,

Pride hath no other glass To shew itself but pride; for supple knees Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.

226

Neglect of departed friends.

As we do turn our backs

26-iii. 3.

From our companion, thrown into his grave;
So his familiars to his buried fortunes

Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd: and his poor self, ·
A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.

227

27-iv. 2.

Decay of pomp.

Vast confusion waits

16-iv. 3.

(As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast) The imminent decay of wrested pomp."

228

Love, the display of.

The ostent" of our love, which, left unshewn,
Is often left unloved.

229

Sufferings softened by sympathy.

30-iii. 6.

When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers, suffers most i' the mind;
Leaving free things, and happy shows, behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
34-iii. 6,

230

Infirmity, its effects.

Infirmity doth still neglect all office,

Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves, When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind, To suffer with the body.

231

The power of melancholy.

O hateful Error, Melancholy's child!

34-ii. 4.

o States clear from distress.

Why dost thou shew to the apt thoughts of men
The things that are not? O Error, soon conceived,
Thou never com'st unto a happy birth, .
But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee.

232

Truth and Beauty, their excellence.

Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix'd.

233

Man values only what he sees and knows.
'Tis very pregnant, P

The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,
Because we see it; but what we do not see,
We tread upon, and never think of it.

234

29-v. 3.

Poems.

5-ii. 1.

Friendship with the wicked, dangerous.
The love of wicked friends converts to fear;
That fear, to hate; and hate turns one, or both,
To worthy danger, and deserved death.

235

Earth, Nature's mother.

17-v. 1.

The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb:
And from her womb, children of divers kind,
We sucking on her natural bosom find;
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.

236

Nature, oft perverted by man.

35-ii. 3.

O, mickle is the powerful grace, that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile, that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth' some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good, but, strain'd from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometime's by action dignified.

Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence, and med'cine power:

35-ii. 3.

p Plain. 'q Virtue. r i.e. To the inhabitants of the earth.

For this being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed foes encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
And, where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
35-ii. 3.

238

Real happiness, where chiefly found.

They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing: It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooners by white hairs, but competency lives longer. 9-i. 2.

239

Ambition and content.

Thoughts tending to Ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders.

*

*

*

Thoughts tending to Content, flatter themselves,
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars,
Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,-
That many have, and others must sit there:t
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of such as have before endured the like.

240

Misguided expectations.

17-v. 5.

How mightily, sometimes, we make us comforts of our losses! And how mightily, some other times, we drown our gain in tears!

241

Timidity, incapable of adventure.

Impossible be strange attempts, to those

11-iv. 3.

That weigh their pains in sense; and do suppose,
What hath been cannot be."

242

11—i. 1.

The love of life.

O our lives' sweetness!

That with the pain of death we'd hourly die,

Rather than die at once!

34-v: 3.

t Exod. xxiii. 2.

$ Sooner comes, sooner acquires, becomes old. u New attempts seem impossible to those who estimate their labour or enterprises by sense, and believe that nothing can be but what they

see before them.