589

Honour and policy.

Honour and policy, like unsevered friends,

I' the war do grow together: Grant that, and tell me,
In peace, what each of them by th' other lose,
That they combine not there.

28-iii. 2.

Drinking: I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.

37-ii. 3.

These should be hours for necessities,

Not for delights; times to repair our nature
With comforting repose, and not for us

To waste.

592

25-v. 1.

11-ii. 3.

Not to woo honour, but to wed it.

Believe not thy disdain, but presently

Do thine own fortunes that obedient right,
Which thy duty owes.

If you shall cleave to my consent,*-when 'tis,
It shall make honour for you.-

So I lose none,

In seeking to augment it, but still keep

My bosom franchised, and allegiance clear,
I shall be counsell'd.

595

Caution in choosing friends.

15-ii. 1.

Where you are liberal of your loves, and counsels,
Be sure, you
be not loose for those you make friends,
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away

Like water from ye, never found again
But where they mean to sink ye.

*Cleave to me constant.

25-ii. 1.

If my offence be of such mortal kind,
That neither service past, nor present sorr
Nor purposed merit in futurity,

Can ransom me into his love again,
But to know so must be my benefit;
So shall I clothe me in a forced content,
And shut myself up in some other course.
To fortune's alms.

Oh, you blessed ministers above, Keep me in patience; and with ripen'd Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up In countenance !*

Give sorrow words; the grief, that does 1: Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bid

Your gentleness shall force More than your force move us to gentler

601

An over-regard for the world.

You have too much respect upon the worl They lose it, that do buy it with nue!

You talk of pride; O that you could turn your eyes towards the napes* of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! 28-ii. 1.

605 Studies to be pursued according to taste and pleasure.

Continue your resolve,

To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.

Only, while we do admire

This virtue, and this moral discipline,
Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle's checks,f
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured;
Talk logic with acquaintance that you have,
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken‡ you;
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.

12-i. 1.

Nor

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. 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.

Hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and

*With allusion to the fable, which says that every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbour's faults, and another behind him in which he stows his own.

† Harsh rules. Perhaps it should be ethics instead of checks. ↑ Animate.

the very age and body of the time, his form and pres

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.

609

36-iii. 2.

37-v. 2.

Submission to the will of God.

Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it

To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou coin'st.

O, see the monstrousness of man,

When he looks out in an ungrateful shape!

17-i. 3.

611

27-iii. 2.

Sincerity.

May your deeds approve,

That good effects may spring from words of love.

Of your philosophy you make no use,
If you give place to accidental evils.

613

34-i. 1.

29-iv. 3.

Benediction.

The grace of heaven,

37-ii. 1.

Before, behind thee, and on every hand,
Enwheel thee round!

614

Nature content with little.

O, reason not the need our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's.

615

Plea of adversity.

If ever you have look'd on better days;

34-ii. 4.

If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;
If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied;
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.

Thou can'st tell, why one's nose stands i' the middle of his face?

Why, to keep his eyes on either side his nose; that what a man cannot smell out, he may spy into.

34-i. 5.

Those that I reverence, those I fear; the wise:
At fools I laugh, not fear them.

618

If we do now make our atonement well,

31-iv. 2.

The benefit of reparation.

Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.

19-iv. 1.

Weed your better judgments

Of all opinion that grows rank in them.

620

Discretion necessary to old age.

You are old;

Nature in you stands on the very verge

Of her confine: you should be ruled and led
By some discretion, that discerns your state
Better than you yourself.

621

10-ii. 7.

34-ii. 4.

A heart fortified by patience.

Since he stands obdurate,

And that no lawful means can carry me
Out of his envy's* reach, I do oppose
My patience to his fury; and am arm'd
To suffer, with a quietness of spirit,
The very tyranny and rage of his.

9-iv. 1.

Go to your bosom;

Knock there; and ask your heart what it doth know That's like my brother's fault if it confess

A natural guiltiness, such as his is,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my
brother.

5-ii. 2.

*Hatred, malice.