Nor are those empty-hearted, whose low sound
Reverbs" no hollowness.

32

Pride's mirror.

34-i. 1.

He, that is proud, eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.

Labouring art can never ransom nature
From her unaidable estate.

26-ii. 3.

-Nature is made better by no mean,
But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art,
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art,
That nature makes. You see, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock;
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race: This is an art

Which does mend nature,—change it rather: but
The art itself is nature.

34

11-ii. 1. & 13-iv. 3.

Detraction.

The greatest are misthought

For things that others do; and, when we fall,
We answer others' merits in our name.

35

Dissimulation.

30-v. 2.

That we were all, as some would seem to be,
Free from our faults, as faults from seeming free!

36

Custom, supreme in its power.

5-iii. 2..

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-peer.y

37

Hardened impiety..

28-ii. 3.

When we in our viciousness grow hard, (O misery on't!) the wise gods seel2 our eyes;

w Reverberates.

x Merits, or demerits.

y Overlook.

z Close up.

In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us
Adore our errors; laugh at us, while we strut
To our confusion.a

38

30-iii. 11.

Procrastination.

Fearful commenting

Is leaden servitorb to dull delay;

Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary.

39

Virtue contrasted with Vice.

24-iv. 3.

What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted ?c
Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

40

The wretchedness of human dependence.
O how wretched

22-iii. 2.

Is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favours!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspéct of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again."

41

Prayers denied, often profitable.

We, ignorant of ourselves,

25-iii. 2.

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good; so find we profit,

By losing of our prayers.e

30-ii. 1.

Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.

43

Recreation, a preventive of Melancholy.

Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue,
But moody and dull Melancholy,

(Kinsman to grim and comfortless Despair ;)
And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop
Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life?

a Rom. i. 28. 2 Thess. ii. 11. Isa. xliv. 20.

11—i. 1.

14-v. 1.

b Timorous thought and cautious disquisition are the dull attendants

Hope and Despair.

The instant action (a cause on foot)

Lives so in hope, as in an early spring

We see th' appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,
That frosts will bite them.

45

Courage.

By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake endeavour for defence;
For courage mounteth with occasion.

46

Pride, its universality.
Why, who cries out on pride,

19-i. 3.

16-ii. 1.

That can therein tax any private party?
Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
Till that the very very means do ebb?
What woman in the city do I name,
When that I say, The city-woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders ?
Who can come in, and say, that I mean her,
When such a one as she, such is her neighbour?
Or what is he of basest function,

That says, his bravery is not on my cost
(Thinking that I mean him), but therein suits
His folly to the mettle of my speech?

There then; How, what then? Let me see wherein
My tongue hath wrong'd him. if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,

Why then, my taxing like a wild-goose flies,
Unclaim'd of any man.

47

many people, under two commands,

Should

Hold amity Ph

48

10-ii. 7.

Contentment.

How, in one house,

34-ii. 4.

Effrontery of Vice.

I ne'er heard yet,

That any of these bolder vices wanted

Less impudence to gainsay what they did,

Than to perform it first.

h Matt. vi. 24.

13-iii. 2.

49

Self-delusion.

What things are we!

Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of all treasons, we still see them reveal themselves, till they attain to their abhorred ends; so he, that contrives against his own nobility, in his proper stream o'erflows himself.k 11-iv. 3.

The jewel, best enamelled,

Will lose his beauty; and though gold 'bides still,
That others touch, yet often touching will
Wear gold; and so no man that hath a name,
But falsehood and corruption doth it shame.'

14-ii. 1.

The shrug, the hum, or ha; these petty brands,
That calumny doth use:-

For calumny will searm

Virtue itself:-these shrugs, these hums, and ha's, When you have said, she's goodly, come between, Ere you can say, she's honest.

52

Impediments increase desire.

13-ii. 1.

All impediments in fancy's" course
Are motives of more fancy.

53

Reputation invaluable.

11-v, 3.

The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is-spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest
Is-a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

Foundations fly the wretched; such, I mean,
Where they should be relieved.

k i.e. Betrays his own secrets in his own talk.

17-i. 1.

31-iii. 6.

1 Gold will long bear the handling; however, often touching will wear even gold; just so the greater character, though as pure as gold itself, may in time be injured by the repeated attacks of falsehood and corruption.

m Brand as infamous.

n Love.

55

Rumour, its diffusiveness.

Rumour is a pipe

Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures ;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.

56

The same.

19-Induction.

Loud Rumour speaks:
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues' continual slanders ride;
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.

In companions

19-Induction.

That do converse and waste the time together,
Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
There must be needs a like proportion
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit.

58

Friendship.

Friendship is constant in all other things,

Save in the office and affairs of love:

9-iii. 4.

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch,

Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.P

59

Happiness, where delusive.

6-ii. 1.

O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!

60

The effect of show on weak minds.

10-v.

ii.

The fool multitude, that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach; Which pries not to th' interior, but, like the martlet,

here.

"Therefore. Let, which is found in the next line, is understood p Passion.