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122

Court and country manners.

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.

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If to do were as easy, as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages, princes' palaces. It 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 mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws, for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip over the meshes of good counsel the cripple.

124

Labour sweetens leisure.

If all the year were playing holidays,

g

To sport would be as tedious as to work;

9-i, 2.

But when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

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No might nor greatness in mortality

18-i. 2.

Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes: What king so strong,
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

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Before the curing of a strong disease,
Even in the instant of repair and health,
The fit is strongest; evils, that take leave,
On their departure most of all shew evil.

5-iii. 2.

16-iii. 4.

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Was but devised at first, to set a gloss
On faint deeds, hollow welcomes,

Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shewn;

But where there is true friendship, there needs none.

g John xiii. 17.

27-i. 2.

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Thieves are not judged, but they are by to hear, Although apparent guilt be seen in them. 17-iv. 1.

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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.

130

Pleasure often preceded by labour.

27-v. 1.

There be some sports are painful; but their labour
Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters
Point to rich ends.

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1-iii. 1.

When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

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The evil, that men do, lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.

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20-iii. 6.

29-iii. 2.

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

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'Tis often seen,

36-iii. 2.

Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds

A native slip to us from foreign seeds.

135

Patience and Cowardice compared.

11-i. 3.

That which in mean men we entitle—patience,

Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.

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17-i. 2.

Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before.

15-iv. 2.

137

Arrogance.

Shall the proud lord,.

h

That bastes his arrogance with his own seam,
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts,-save such as do revolve
And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipp'd
Of that we hold an idol more than he?

26-ii. 3.

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Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?
And the creature run from the cur?

There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.

139

34-iv. 6.

Human nature.

Strange is it, that our bloods,

Óf colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty.

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The hearts of princes kiss obedience,

11-ii. 3.

So much they love it; but, to stubborn spirits,
They swell, and grow as terrible as storms.

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25-iii. 1.

What our contempts do often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself.

142

i

The ill effects of neglected duty.

30-i. 2.

Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves:
Omission to do what is necessaryk

Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

h Fat.

26-iii. 3.

ii.e. Change of circumstances, that is, 'the pleasure of to-day by revolution of events, and change of circumstances, often loses all its value to us, and becomes to-morrow a pain.'

k By neglecting our duty, we commission or enable that danger of dishonour which could not reach us before, to lay hold upon us.

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Pardon, purchased by such sin,

For which the pardoner himself is in:
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is borne in high authority:

When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended,
That for the fault's love, is the offender friended.

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Things, done well,

5-iv. 2.

And with a care, exempt themselves from fear:
Things, done without example, in their issue

Are to be fear'd.

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25-i. 2..

O infinite virtue! com'st thou smiling from
The world's great snare uncaught?

146

30-iv. 8.

Flattery, its evil.

He does me double wrong,

That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.

147

Wisdom, superior to Fortune.

Wisdom and fortune combating together,
If that the former dare but what it can,
No chance may shake it.

148

Calamity lightened by fortitude.

17-iii. 2.

30-iii. 11.

He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears
But the free comfort, which from thence he hears:
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow,
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
37-i. 3.

149

Adversity, the test of character.

In the reproof of chance

Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way

With those of nobler bulk?

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis,1 and anon, behold

1 The daughter of Neptune.

The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perseus' horse: Where's then the saucy boat,
Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now
Co-rival'd greatness? either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valour's show, and valour's worth, divide,
In storms of fortune: For, in her ray and brightness,
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize,m
Than by the tiger: but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled under shade, why, then the thing of

courage,

n

As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize,
And with an accent tuned in self-same key,
Returns to chiding fortune.

150

Determinations of Anger.

What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

26-i. 3.

151

36-iii. 2.

Authority.

O place! O form!

How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming?

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5-ii. 4.

What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,
For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
When he might spurn him with his foot away?

153

Self-praise no commendation.

The worthiness of praise distains his worth,

23-i. 4.

If that the praised himself bring the praise forth:
But what the repining enemy commends,

That breath fame follows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.P

m The gad-fly that stings cattle.

26-i. 3.

n It is said of the tiger, that in storms and high winds he rages and

roafs most furiously.

o Outside.

p Prov. xxvii. 2.

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