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?

121.

Truth, beauty's ornament.

Poems.

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye,
As the perfumed tincture of the roses;
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses;
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;

Die to themselves; Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.

Poems.

122.

Truth and beauty, their excellence.

Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;

But best is best, if never intermix'd.

Poems.

Marriage is a matter of more worth
Than to be dealt in by attorneyshipt.

For what is wedlock forced, but a hell,
An age of discord and continual strife?
Whereas the contrary bringeth forth bliss,
And is a pattern of celestial peace.

124.

The same.

Earthly happier is the rose distilled,

21-v. 5.

Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness. 7-i. 1.

125. Parents to be consulted in marriage concerns. Reason, my son

Should choose himself a wife; but as good reason,

t

By the discretionary agency of another.

The father (all whose joy is nothing else

But fair posterity) should hold some counsel
In such a business.

13-iv. 3.

A father

13-iv. 3.

Is, at the nuptial of his son, a guest
That best becomes the table.

127.

The duty of conjugal fidelity.

Nature craves,

All dues be render'd to their owners; Now,
What nearer debt in all humanity,
Than wife is to the husband? if this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection;
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed a wills, resist the same;
There is a law in each well-order'd nation,
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.

128.

Conjugal affection needful in wives.

26-ii. 2.

Fie, fie, unknit that threat'ning unkind brow;
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty, as frosts bite the meads;
Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds;
And in no sense is meet or amiable.

12-v. 2.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance: commits his body
To painful labour, both by sea and land;
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
But love, fair looks, and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.

I am ashamed, that women are so simple

12-v. 2.

To offer war, where they should kneel for peace;

Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world;

But that our soft conditions and our hearts,"

Should well agree with our external parts? 12—v. 2.

131.

Conjugal affection needful in wives.

My noble father,

I do perceive here a divided duty:

To you, I am bound for life, and education;
My life and education, both do learn me

How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,

I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband;
And so much duty as my mother shew'd
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge, that I may profess
Due to my lord.

Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
Only for praise sake, when they strive to be
Lords o'er their lords?

37-i. 3.

8-iv. 1.

How easy is it for the proper-false y

In women's waxen hearts to set their forms! 4-ii. 2.

You should account me the more virtuous, that I have not been common in my love.

28-ii. 3.

Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong? 17-ii. 1.

136.

Female frailty.

Women are frail;

Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;
Which are as easy broke as they make forms.
. Nay, call us ten times frail;

* Gentle tempers.

y Fair deceivers.

For we are soft as our complexions are,
And credulous to false prints.

Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid, as in woman.

A woman moved, is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty

5-ii. 4,

34-iv. 2.

Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it. 12-v. 2.

A grandam's name is little less in love,

Than is the doting title of a mother;

They are as children, but one step below. 24-iv. 4.

140.

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 him that climb'd unto their nest,
Offering their own lives in their young's defence?

The poor wren,

23-ii. 2.

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

15-iv. 2.

142. Affections not felt are disbelieved or despised.

How sometimes nature will betray its folly,

Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosomsa!

Fight for.

13-i. 2.

Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments shows, agreeably to Thucydides, that sentiments, when above the tone of others, reach not their sympathy.

A sick man's appetite, who desires most that,
Which would increase his evil.

144.

Parental discipline neglected.

28-i. 1.

Had doting Priam check'd his son's desire,
Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire.

145.

Filial rebellion.

Poems.

That nature which contemns its origin,

Cannot be border'd certain in itself;

She, that herself will slivera and disbranch

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

34-iv. 2.

Had I a dozen sons,-each in my love alike,-I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country, than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.

147.

Companionship.

In companions

28-i. 3.

That do converse and waste the time together,
Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
There must be needs a like proportion
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit.

9-iii. 4.

148. Acquaintanceship to be formed with caution. It is certain that either wise bearing, or ignorant carriage, is caught, as men take diseases, one of another: therefore, let men take heed of their company. 19-v. 1.

"In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." -1 Sam. iii. 12, 13.

⚫ Restrained within any certain bounds.

d Tear off.