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Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience.

36-iii. 4.

182.

The power of imagination.
Conceit may rob

The treasury of life, when life itself

34-iv. 6.

183.

Moral conquest.

Yields to the theft.

Brave conquerors!-for so you are,

That war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's desires.

184.

The necessity of repose.

These should be hours for necessities, Not for delights; times to repair our nature With comforting repose, and not for us

To waste.

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8-i. 1.

25-v. 1.

A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. 15-v. 1.

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Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand; but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. Be not too tame

neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'er-step not the modesty of nature. 36-iii. 2.

187. Studies to be pursued according to taste and

pleasure.

Continue your resolve,

To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.

Only, while we do admire

When life is willing to be destroyed.

pray;

This virtue, and this moral discipline,
Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I
Or so devote to Aristotle's ethics',
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd:

Talk logic with acquaintance that you have,
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;

m

The mathematics, and the metaphysics,

Fall to them, as you find your stomach serves you:

No profit grows, where is no pleasure ta'en;-
In brief, study what you most affect.

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The nimble spirits in the arteries;

As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.

189.

Cultivation and Sterility.

12-i. 1.

8-iv. 3.

Our bodies are our gardens; to the which, our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it steril with idleness, or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions. 37-i. 3.

190. Things to be valued by their worth.
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions" swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone

Is good, without a name; vileness is so°:
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title.

191.

The character of true excellence. Value dwells not in particular will; It holds its estimate and dignity

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11-ii. 3.

n Titles.

• Good is good independent of any worldly distinction;

and so is vileness, vile.

As well wherein 't is precious of itself
As in the prizer; 't is mad idolatry,
To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects P,
Without some image of the affected merit.
I take to-day a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgment: How may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I choose? there can be no evasion

To blench from this, and to stand firm by honour:
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,

When we have soil'd them; nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sieves,
Because we now are full.

192. Promises and Performances.

26-ii. 2.

Promising is the very air o' the time: it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind of will, or testament, which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.

193.

Prevalence of appearances.

27-v. 1.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,— That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawdst, Though they are made and moulded of things past; And give to dust, that is a little gilt,

More laud than gilt" o'er-dusted.

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26-iii. 3.

There is so great a fever on goodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it: novelty is only in re

P The will dotes that attributes or gives the qualities which it affects; that first causes excellence, and then admires it. qi. e. Under the guidance of my will.

Shrink, or fly off.
New-fashioned toys.

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quest; and it is as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous to be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce truth enough alive, to make societies secure; but security enough to make fellowships accursed: much upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world.

195.

The desire of novelty.

It hath been taught us from the primal state,
That he, which is, was wish'd until he were;

5-iii. 2.

And the ebb'd man, ne'er loved, till ne'er worth love,
Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body,
Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,

Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion.

196.

Customs, new, heedlessly followed.

New customs,

Though they be never so ridiculous,

30-i. 4.

Nay, let them be unmanly, yet are follow'd. 25-i. 3.

197.

Custom supreme in its power.

What custom wills, in all things should we do 't,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heap'd
For truth to over-peery.

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That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night:
And that shall lend a kind of easiness

28-ii. 3.

To the next abstinence: the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency.

36-iii. 4.

199.

Ceremony, its origin.
Ceremony

Was but devised at first, to set a gloss

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On faint deeds, hollow welcomes,

Recanting goodness, sorry ere 't is shewn;

But where there is true friendship, there needs none.

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Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity, (So it be new, there 's no respect how vile,) That is not quickly buzz'd into the ears?

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Let the subject see, to make them know, That outward courtesies would fain proclaim Favours that keep within 2.

202.

Court and country manners.

27-i. 2.

17-ii. 1.

5-v. 1.

Those, that are good manners at the court, are as ridiculous in the country, as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court.

10-iii. 2.

203. Town and country life contrasted.
Often, to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded a beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full-wing'd eagle. O, this lifeb
Is nobler, than attending for a check;
Richer, than doing nothing for a babed;
Prouder, than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
Such gain the cap of him, that makes them fine,
Yet keeps his book uncross'd.

Did you but know the city's usuries,

And felt them knowingly; the art o' the court,
As hard to leave, as keep; whose top to climb

Is certain falling, or so slippery, that

The fear 's as bad as falling; the toil of the war,

A pain that only seems to seek out danger

I' the name of fame, and honour; which dies i' the

search,

And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph,

Then only shows of kindness have their worth,

When outward courtesies truly declare

The heart that keeps within.

a Scaly-winged. b Rustic life. •
A puppet, or plaything for children.

Command, control.

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