17 117 Merit, its value. Who shall go about To cozen fortune, and be honourable Without the stamp of merit! Let none presume 118 Merit, too often unrewarded. O, that estates, degrees, and offices, 9-ii. 9. Were not derived corruptly! and that clear honour How many be commanded, that command! How much low peasantry would then be glean'd From the true seed of honour! and how much honour Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times, 9-ii. 9. To be new varnish'd! 119 Mercy, the fairest virtue. No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, As mercy does. 120 Capriciousness of fortune. 5-ii. 2. Will fortune never come with both hands full, 121 The power of prejudice. There may be in the cup 19-iv. 4. A spider steep'd, and one may drink; depart, The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known 13-ii. 1. * Heavings. 122 Court and country manners. Those, that are good manners at the court, are as ridiculous in the country, as the behaviour of the 10-iii. 2. country is most mockable at the court. 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, 9-i. 2. But when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come, No might nor greatness in mortality 18-i. 2. Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny Before the curing of a strong disease, 127 Ceremony, its origin. Was but devised at first, to set a gloss Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown; 5-iii. 2. 16-iii. 4. But where there is true friendship, there needs none. *John xiii. 17. 27-i. 2. Thieves are not judged, but they are by to hear, 129 Promises and Performances. 17-iv. 1. Το 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. 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. 27-v. 1. Pleasure often preceded by labour. 130 There be some sports are painful; but their labour 1-iii. 1. When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner. 132 Posthumous good and evil. The evil, that men do, lives after them; 20-iii. 6. 29-iii. 2. Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there. "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, 136 Crisis. 17-i. 2. Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before. 15-iv. 2. Shall the proud lord, That bastes his arrogance with his own seam,* 26-ii. 3. Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office. 34—iv. 6. Strange is it, that our bloods, Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together, 140 Obedience to Princes. The hearts of princes kiss obedience, 11-ii. 3. So much they love it; but, to stubborn spirits, 141 Fickleness. 25-iii. 1. What our contempts do often hurl from us, The opposite of itself. 142 The ill effects of neglected duty. 30-i. 2. Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves: Seals a commission to a blank of danger; * Fat. 26-iii. 3. tie. 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.' By neglecting our duty, we commission or enable that danger of dishonour which could not reach us before, to lay hold upon us. Pardon, purchased by such sin, For which the pardoner himself is in: When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended, 144 The advantage of caution. Things, done well, 5-iv. 2. And with a care, exempt themselves from fear : Are to be fear'd. O infinite virtue! com'st thou smiling from 146 25-i. 2. 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, 148 Calamity lightened by fortitude. 17-iii. 2. 30-iii. 11. He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears 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,* and anon, behold The daughter of Neptune. |