Little upon the feas; fo fome men in
The court, feem Coloffuffes in a chamber;
Who if they came into the field, would appear
Pitiful pigmies.
It fills the kingdom full of holydays;
And only feeds the wants of whores and pipers;
And makes th' idle drunken rogues get spiniters:
By heav'n it is the furfeit of all youth,
That makes the toughness, and the strength of nations
Melt into women. 'Tis an ease that broods
Thieves, and bastards only.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Captain.
And fat of peace, your young men ne'er were train'd
In martial difcipline; and your fhips unrigg'd,
Rot in the harbour; nor defence prepar'd,
But thought unufeful as if that the gods
Indulgent to your floth, had granted you
A perpetuity of pride and pleasure ;
Nor change fear'd, or expected.
A change but in their growth, which a long peace
Hath brought unto perfection, are like fteel,
Which being neglected, will confume itself
With its own ruft: fo doth fecurity
Eat through the hearts of ftates, while they're fleeping
And lull'd in her falfe quiet.
Nabbs's Hannibal and Scipio.
Men are unhappy when they know not how
To value peace, without its lofs:
And from the want learn how to use,
What they could fo ill manage when enjoy'd.
Sir R. Howard's Blind Lady.
Surfeited with fulfome ease and wealth,
Our luscious hours are candy'd up for women;
Whilft our men lofe their appetite to glory;
Our pilots all their skill, for want of ftorms.
Crown's Ambitious Statesman.
232234PERSEVERANCE.
Perfeverance keeps honour bright:
To have done, is to hang quite out of fashion,
Like rufty mail in monumental mockery.
For honour travels in a straight fo narrow,
Where one but goes abreaft; keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand fons,
That one by one purfue; if you give way,
Or turn afide from the direct forth-right,
Like to an entred tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindermoft; and there
you lie,
Like to a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
For pavement to the abject near, o'er-run
And trampled on then what they do in present,
Tho' lefs than yours in paft, muft o'er-top yours.
For time is like a fashionable hoft,
That flightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand;
But with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly,
Grafps in the comer; welcome ever smiles,
And farewel goes out fighing. O, let not virtue feek
Remuneration for the thing it was!
For beauty, wit, high birth, defert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are fubjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin ;
That all, with one confent, praise new-born gawds,
Tho' they are made and moulded of things paft,
And give to duft, that is a little gilt,
More laud than they will give to gold o'er-dufted:
The prefent eye praises the prefent object.
Then marvel not, thou great and compleat man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax ;
Since things in motion fooner catch the eye,
Than what not stirs.
Shakespear's Troilus and Creffida.
Know mortals, that the men the gods most love,
In hard and dang'rous arts they always prove;
When men live brave at first, then fall to crimes,
Their bad is chronicle to future times :
For who begins good arts, and not proceeds;
He but goes backward in all noble deeds.
Goffe's Couragious Turk.
Not to promote what we do once commence,
Argues a weakness, and a diffidence.
When great ones, for great actions are bound,
And failed far i'th' voyage, they will not
Turn for their honour, but be rather drown'd;
Nor can, perhaps: as thofe the gulph have fhot.
Or not begin, or finish, is a rule,
As well in Mars's, as in Venus' school.
Nerves would be cramp'd, the lazy blood would freeze,
Limbs be unactive, fhould they longer lie;
And if they ftill fhould facrifice to ease,
Valour would fall into a lethargy :
Dull lakes are choak'd with melancholick mud;
Motions do clear, and christallize a flood.
Revolt is recreant, when pursuit is brave;
Never to faint, doth purchase what we crave.
Machen's Dumb Knight.
Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's fo hard, but fearch will find it out.
PETITION. . You hurt your innocence, fuing for the guilty.
Virtue is either lame, or not at all;
And love a facrilege, and not a faint,
When it bars up the way to mens petitions.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian.
How wretched is that fuppliant, who must
Make fuit to obtain that, which he fears to take?
Richard Brome's Mad couple well match’d.
Of all means to prefer my juft complaints
With any promifing hope to gain a hearing;
Much less redress: Petitions not sweetned
With gold, are but unfav'ry; oft refus'd:
Or if receiv'd, are pocketted, not read.
A fuitor's fwelling tears by the glowing beams
Of chol'rick authority are dry'd up,
Before they fall; or if feen, never pity'd.
Malfinger's Emperor of the Eaft
Petitions fhall be drawn,
Humble in form; but fuch for matter
As the bold Macedonian youth would fend
To men he did defpife for luxury:
The first begets opinion of the world,
Which looks not far, but on the outside dwells:
Th' other enforces courage in our own;
For bold demands must boldly be maintain'd.
204236 PLAYER.
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of paffion,
Could force his foul fo to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his vifage warm'd:
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suting
With forms to his conceit ? and all for nothing?
For Hecuba?
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba
That he should weep for her? what would he do,
Had he the motive, and the cue for paffion,
That I have? he would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the gen'ral ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appall the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed,
The very faculty of eyes and ears.
1. Speak the fpeech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd
It to you, trippingly on the tongue. But
If you mouth it, as many of our players
Do, I had as liefe, the town crier had
Spoke my lines: and do not faw the air too
Much with your hand thus, but use all gently;
For in the very torrent, tempeft, and,
As I may fay, whirl-wind of your paffion,
You must acquire, and beget a temp'rance
That may give it smoothness.
Me to the foul, to hear a robuftious
Reriwig-pated fellow tear a paffion
To tatters, to very rags, to split the
Ears of the groundlings: who, for the most part,
Are capable of nothing, but inexplicable
Dumb fhews, and noife: I could have fuch a fellow
Whip'd for o'erdoing termagant; it
Out-Herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.
2. I warrant your honour.
I. Be not too tame neither; but let your own
Difcretion be your tutor, fute the action
To the word, the word to the action;
With this fpecial obfervance, that you o'erftep
Not the modefty of nature; for
any
Thing fo overdone is from the purpose
Of playing; whofe end, both at the first and
Now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror
Up to nature; to fhew virtue her own
Feature, fcorn her own image, and the very
Age and body of the time, his form and
Prefure Now this o'erdone, or come tardy
Of, tho' it makes th' unskilful laugh, cannot
But make the judicious grieve: the cenfure
Of which one, must in your allowance o'er weigh
A whole theatre of others. Oh, there be
Players that I've seen play, and heard others
Praise, and that highly, not to speak it prophanely,
That neither having the accent of christian,
|