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

87

Virtue and Vice, their influence.

Virtue, as it never will be moved,

4-iii. 4.

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,

Will sate itself in a celestial bed,

And prey on garbage.

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36-i. 5.

'Tis too much proved,§—that, with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

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.

90

Instability of worldly glory. Like madness is the glory of this life,

36-iii. 4.

36-ii. 1.

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.

91

Mankind, its general character.

Who lives, that's not

Depraved, or depraves? who dies, that bears

27-i. 2.

Not one spurn to their graves of their friend's gift ?¶

92

Interposition.

'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes

27-i. 2.

*In the time of Shakspeare, trunks, which are now deposited in lumber-rooms, were part of the furniture in apartments where company was received. They were richly ornamented on the top and sides with scrollwork, and emblematical devices, and were elevated on feet.

1 Satiate.

† Ornamented. § Too frequent. i.e. The glory of this life is just as much madness in the eye of reason, as pomp appears to be when compared to the frugal repast of a philosopher. Ti. e. Given them by their friends.

Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

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36-v. 2.

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

34-i. 1.

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To persist

26-ii. 2.

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

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What rein can hold licentious wickedness,

When down the hill he holds his fierce career?

96

Filial rebellion.

That nature which contemns its origin,

Cannot be border'd certain in itself;

She, that herself will sliver§ and disbranch

20-iii. 3.

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

97

Disordered imaginations.

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.

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Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,

Which after-hours give leisure to repent.

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37—iii. 3.

24-iv. 4.

Where's that palace, whereinto foul things Sometimes intrude not? who has a breast so pure, But some uncleanly apprehensions

Folded, doubled.

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.' Prov. xxviii. 13.
First folio reads,

'Who covers faults at last with shame derides.' Restrained within any certain bounds.

§ Tear off.

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

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30-iii. 11.

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

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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.

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26-iii. 3.

The beauty that is borne here in the face,
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself
(That most pure spirit of sense) behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed

*Courts of equity.

Who has so virtuous a breast, that some impure conceptions will not sometimes enter into it: hold a session there as in a regular court, and bench by the side' of authorised and lawful thoughts? Rom. vii. 18-24. Prov. v. 14. Are of a piece with them. Excellently endowed.

§ Growling.

Salutes each other with each other's form,
For speculation turns not to itself,

Till it hath travell'd, and is married there,
Where it may see itself.

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No man is the lord of any thing

26-iii. 3.

(Though in and of him there be much consisting), Till he communicate his parts to others:

Nor doth he of himself know them for aught,

Till he behold them form'd in the applause,

Where they're extended; which, like an arch, reverberates

The voice again; or, like a gate of steel,

Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat.

26-iii. 3.

107

Man not to be a slave to sense.

What is a man,

If his chief good, and market* of his time,

Be but to sleep, and feed? a beast, no more.

Sure, He, that made us with such large discourse,t Looking before, and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unused.

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36-iv. 4.

We play the fools with the time; and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds, and mock us. 19-ii. 2.

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If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings, and the widow weeps.

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6-v. 2.

Ah! when the means are gone, that buy this praise, The breath is gone whereof this praise is made: Fast won-fast lost; one cloud of winter showers, These flies are couched.

27-ii. 2.

* Profit.

† Power of comprehension.

Grow mouldy.

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Love, and tongue-tied simplicity,

In least, speak most, to my capacity.

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The worst is not,

7-v. 1.

So long as we can say, This is the worst. 34-iv. 1.

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'Tis the mind that makes the body rich;

And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth* in the meanest habit.
What, is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel,
Because his painted skin contents the eye?

114

Cultivation and Sterility.

12-iv. 3.

Our bodies are our gardens; to the which, our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions.

115

Misconception of motives.

37-i. 3.

I am in this earthly world; where, to do harm,
Is often laudable; to do good, sometime,
Accounted dangerous folly.

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15-iv. 2.

Let the subject see, to make them know, That outward courtesies would fain proclaim Favours that keep within.f

* Appeareth.

†Then only shows of kindness have their worth,
When outward courtesies truly declare

The heart that keeps within.

5-v. 1.

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