Than the soft myrtle !-O, but man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authority-

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence,-like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep.

74

5-ii. 2.

Divine Justice.

You are above,

34-iv. 2.

You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge!

That comfort comes too late;

'Tis like a pardon after execution:

That gentle physic, given in time, had cured me;
But now I am past all comforts here, but prayers.

76

Things to be valued by their worth.

25-iv. 2.

From the 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.

We must not stint‡

Our necessary actions, in the fear

To cope malicious censurers; which ever,
As ravenous fishes, do a vessel follow,
That is new trimm'd; but benefit no farther
Than vainly longing.

78

11-ii. 3.

25-i. 2.

Judgment of weak minds not to be regarded.
What we oft do best,

Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up

For our best act.

79

Depravity.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile :*
Filths savour but themselves.

In the fatness of these pursy times, Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;

Yea, curbt and woo, for leave to do him good.

25-i. 2.

34-iv. 2.

36-iii. 4.

O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power
To seduce!

36-i. 5.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:

27-i. 2.

Some run from brakest of vice, and answer none;
And some condemned for a fault alone.

84

Satan outwitting himself.

5-ii. 1.

The devil knew not what he did, when he made man politic; he crossed himself by't: and I cannot think, but, in the end, the villanies of man will set him clear.

Ingrateful man, with liquorish draughts,

27-iii. 3.

And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,
That from it all consideration slips.

86

Mental deformity and virtue.

27-iv. 3.

In nature there's no blemish, but the mind;
None can be call'd deform'd, but the unkind:

*Titus i. 15.

·

† Bend.

Brakes of vice,' means the engine of torture. In Holinshed, p. 670, it is mentioned, 'the said Hawkins was cast into the Tower, and at length brought to the brake,' &c. This engine is still to be seen in the Tower.

*

Virtue is beauty ; but the beauteous-evil
Are empty trunks,* o’erflourished by the devil.

4-iii. 4. 87

Virtue and Vice, their influence.
Virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d,
Will sates itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.

36-i. 5. 88

Hypocrisy 'Tis too much proved, —that, with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er The devil himself.

36-iii. 4. 89

Age provident. Youth heedless.
It seems, it is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion.

36--ii. 1. 90

Instability of worldly glory.
Like madness is the glory of this life,
As this pomp shows to a little oil, and root.||
We make ourselves fools, to disport ourselves ;
And spend our flatteries, to drink those men,
Upon whose age we void it up again
With poisonous spite and envy.

27-i. 2. 91

Mankind, its general character.

Who lives, that's not Depraved, or depraves? who dies, that bears Not one spurn to their graves of their friend's gift ?T

27-i. 2. 92

Interposition. 'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes

Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

36-v. 2.

Time shall unfold what plaited* cunning hides,
Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.†

34-i. 1.

94

Obstinacy, its evil.

To persist

26-ii. 2.

In doing wrong, extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy.

What rein can hold licentious wickedness,

When down the hill he holds his fierce career?

From her material sap, perforce must wither,
And come to deadly use.

34-iv. 2.

Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons,

Which, at the first, are scarce found to distaste;
But with a little act upon the blood,

Burn like the mines of sulphur.

Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,

Which after-hours give leisure to repent.

37-iii. 3.

24-iv. 4.

Keep leets,* and law-days, and in session sit
With meditations lawful?†

100

Timidity and self-confidence.

37-iii. 3.

Blind Fear, that seeing Reason leads, finds safer footing than blind Reason stumbling without Fear.

101

Judgment influenced by circumstances.

Men's judgments are

26-iii. 2.

A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike.

30-iii. 11.

Gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.

Cold ways,

17-i. 3.

That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous
Where the disease is violent.

104

Knowledge to be communicated.

28-iii. 1.

That man-how dearly ever parted,||

How much in having, or without, or in,-
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

26-iii. 3.