Grief boundeth where it falls,

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.e

180

Misconstruction.

17-i. 2.

Men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

h

Poor and content, is rich, and rich enough;
But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter,i
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.

Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.

183

29-i. 3.

37-iii. 3.

4-ii. 2.

Nature, its weakness.

Strange it is,

30-v. 1.

That nature must compel us to lament
Our most persisted deeds.

184

Judgment governed by circumstances.

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes, and furr'd gowns, hide all. Plate sin with
gold,

And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks:
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.

185

Virtue.

34-iv. 6.

Virtue, that transgresses, is but patched with sin; and sin, that amends, is but patched with virtue.

The first time that we smell the air,

We wawl and cry:

4-i. 5.

e That is, no griefs, evidently affected, have a sympathetic influence by re-action upon others. The conceit is from a ball contrasted to a bladder. f Entirely.

h Endless, unbounded.

g'I have learned in whatever state,' &c.---Phil. iv. 11.
i Winter, producing no fruits.
k Dexterous, ready fiend.

When we are born, we cry, that we are come
To this great stage of fools.

34-iv. 6.

Sometimes, hath the brightest day a cloud:
And, after summer, evermore succeeds

Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold:
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet. 22-ii. 4.

188

The camomile and youth contrasted.

Though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.

189

Pride, its effects.

Two curs shall tame each other: Pride alone

18-ii. 4.

Must tarre1 the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone.

190

Men, their various characters.

O heavens, what some men do,

While some men leave to do!

26-i. 3.

How some men creep in skittish Fortune's hall,
While others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another's pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!

191

Contentment, its happiness.

'Tis better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.

26-iii. 3.

25-ii. 3.

That lowliness is young Ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees"
By which he did ascend.

1 Provoke,

29-ii. 1.

193

Parental discipline neglected.

Had doting Priam check'd his son's desire,

Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire."

194

How easy

Deceivers of Females.

is it for the proper-false"

In women's waxen hearts to set their forms! 4-ii. 2.

195

Stubbornness of mind.
To wilful men,

34-ii. 4.

The injuries, that they themselves procure,
Must be their schoolmasters.

196

Prayers insincere, ineffectual.

The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;
They are polluted offerings, more abhorr'd
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

It is the purpose, that makes strong the vow;
But vows, to every purpose, must not hold.r

197

Determination with consideration.

What we do determine, oft we break.

Purpose is but the slave to memory;

Of violent birth, but poor validity:

26-v. 3.

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be. 36-iii. 2.

198

Blessings underrated.

It so falls out,

That what we have we prize not to the worth,
Whiless we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then we rackt the value; then we find
The virtue, that possession would not shew us
Whiles it was ours.

6-iv. 1.

Full oft 'tis seen,

Our mean" secures us; and our mere defects
Prove our commodities.

34-iv. 1.

200

Disinterestedness.

Never any thing can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it.

201

Mental passions, their effects.

The passions of the mind,

That have their first conception by mís-dread,
Have after-nourishment and life by care;

7-v. 1.

And what was first but fear what might be done,"
Grows elder now, and cares it be not done.*

202

Disquietude.

Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,
For things that are not to be remedied.

203

Exaltation, its danger.

W

33-i. 2.

21-iii. 3.

They that stand high, have many blasts to shake

them;

And, if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

201

Mercy, pretended.

Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.

205

Treason and murder, handmaids.

24-i. 3.

5—ii. 1..

Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose.

206

Retributive justice.

20-ii. 2.

We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.

O mischief! thou art swift To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!.

w But fear of what may happen.

* And makes provision that it may not be done.

15-i. 7.

35-v. 1.

36-iv. 4.

Ambition puff'd,

Makes mouths at the invisible event;
Exposing what is mortal and unsure,

To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great,
Is, not to stir without great argument.

Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust;
But, in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just.z
To be in anger, is impiety;

But who is man, that is not angry ?

The poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pâng as great
As when a giant dies.

211

27-iii. 5.

5-iii. 1.

The past and future.

O thoughts of men accurst!

Past, and to come, seem best; things present, worst.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

19—i. 3.

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Willing misery

Outlives incertain pomp, is crown'd before:a
The one is filling still, never complete;

y For aggravation.

15-v. 5.

z Homicide in our own defence, by a merciful interposition of the

law, is considered justifiable.

a i.e. Arrives sooner at the completion of its wishes.