472 Silence most expressive of happiness.

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy : I were but little happy, if I could say how much. 6–1. 1 473

Daringness. 0, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do! not knowing what they do!

6-iv. 1. 474

Suspension of life.
Death may usurp on nature many hours,
And yet the fire of life kindle again
The overpressed spirits.

33-iii. 2. 475

Practice and Theory. The art and practic part of life Must be the mistress to the theoric.* 20-i. 1. 476

Contentiousness. Some kind of men put quarrels purposely on others, to taste their valour.

4-iii. 4. 477

Hollow friends.

Friendship’s full of dregs: Methinks, false hearts should never have sound legs, Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on court’sies.

27-i. 2. 478

Human imperfection.
Who is so full of grace, that it flows over
On all that need ?

30—v. 2. Avarice.

Avarice Grows with more pernicious root Than summer-seeding lust.

15-iv. 3. 480

Faithless friendship. Who should be trusted now, when one's right hand Is perjured to the bosom?

2-v. 4. 481

Contention.
Where two raging fires meet together,
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury:

479

Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extrerne gusts will blow out fire and all.

12-ii. 1. 482

Suspicion. Who finds the heifer dead, and bleeding fresh, And sees "fast by a butcher with an axe, But will suspect, 'twas he that made the slaughter ? Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest, But may imagine how the bird was dead, Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak ?

22-iii. 2. 483

Selfishness. We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave, That, doting on his own obsequious bondage, Wears out his time, much like his master's ass, For nought but provender; and, when he's old, cashier'd.

Others there are, Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty, Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves; And, throwing but shows of service on their lords, Do well thrive by them, and, when they have lined

their coats, Do themselves homage.

37-i. 1. 484

Violent desires. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action ; and till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait, On purpose laid to make the taker mad : Mad in pursuit, and in possession so; Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof,—and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream: All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Poems.

485 Man changed by outward circumstances.

At all times alike Men are not still the same; 'Twas time and griefs, That framed him thus; time, with his fairer hand Offering the fortunes of his former days, The former man may make him.

27-v. 2. 486

The effects of fear and sloth.

Ebbing men, Most often do so near the bottom run, By their own fear, or sloth.

1-ii. 1. 487

Resignation.

The time will bring on summer, When briars shall have leaves as well as thorns, And be as sweet, as sharp.*

11-iv. 4. 488

Ingratitude.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkindt.

As man's ingratitude:
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude,
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot :
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remember'di not. 10-ii. 7. 489

Carefulness.
For my means, l'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

36-iv. 5. 490

Man to be studied before trusted.
'Tis not a year or two shows us a man:
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;
They eat us hungrily, and when they are full,
They belch us.

37-iii

. 4.

* As briars have sweetness with their prickles, so shall troubles be recompensed with joy. | Unnatural.

I Remembering

491

Grief in experience and inexperience.

True grief is fond, and testy as a child,
Who, wayward once, his mood with nought agrees.
Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;
Continuance tames the one, the other wild,
Like an unpractised swimmer, plunging still,
With too much labour, drowns for want of skill.

Poems. 492

Affliction sanctified.
Affliction has a taste as sweet
As any cordial comfort.

13—v. 3. 493

The power of natural affection. Unreasonable creatures feed their young: And though man's face be fearful to their eyes, Yet, in protection of their tender ones, Who hath not seen them (even with those wings Which sometimes they have used with fearful flight) Make war with them that climb'd unto their nest, Offering their own lives in their young's defence ?

23–ii. 2. 494

The same.

The poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight,* Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.

15-iv, 2. 495

Service seldom duly rewarded. The merit of service is seldom attributed to the true and exact performer.

11-iii. 6. 496

Satanic craftiness.
Oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.t

15-i. 3. 497

The frailty of beauty. Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower ?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back!
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid ?

Poems. 498

Modest silence.
What poor duty cannot do,
Noble respect takes it in might, not merit.
Where I have come great clerks have purposed
To greet me with premeditated welcomes ;
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practised accents in their fears,
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome: Trust me,
Out of this silence, yet, I pick'd a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty
I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of
saucy
and audacious eloquence.

7-v. 1. 499

Conscience. Conscience, it makes a man a coward; a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it detects him.

24-i. 4. 500 Troubles aggravated by the view of what would

relieve them.
'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore:
He ten times pines, that pines beholding food :
To see the salve, doth make the wound ache more;
Great grief grieves most at that would do it good :
Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood,
Who, being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'erflows;
Grief dallied with, nor law nor limits knows.

Poems. 501

The power of fear.
Fear, and be slain; no worse can come, to fight: