For laws flow progreffes would quickly end,
Could we forgive, as faft as men offend.
Revenge of paft offences is the cause
Why peaceful minds confented to have laws:
Yet plaintiffs and defendants much mistake
Their cure, and their diseases lafting make;
For to be reconcil'd, and to comply,

Would prove their cheap and shortest remedy.
The length and charge of law vex all that fue ;
Laws punish many, reconcile but few.
Intire forgiveness, thus deriv'd from you,
Does clients reconcile and factions too.

Sir W. Davenant on the Reftauration.

Yet fince on all war never needful was,
Wife Aribert did keep the people fure
By laws from little dangers; for the laws

Them from themselves, and not from pow'r fecure. Elfe conquerors, by making laws, o'ercome

Their own gain'd pow'r, and leave mens fury free: Who growing deaf to pow'r, the laws grow dumb; Since none can plead, where all may judges be.

Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert. Strict laws, are like fteel bodice, good for growing

limbs ;

But when the joints are knit, they are not helps,
But burdens.

Fane's Love in the dark.

For that is made a righteous law by time,
Which law at first did judge the highest crime.

E. of Orrery's Mustapha.

LEARNING.

Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,
Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain;
As painfully to pore upon a book,

To feek the light of truth; while truth the while Doth falfly blind the eye-fight of his look:

Light, feeking light, doth light of light beguile;
H 6

So,

So, ere you find where light in darkness lies;
Your light grows dark, by lofing of your eyes.
Study is like the heav'ns glorious fun,

That will not be deep-fearch'd with fawcy looks;
Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save bafe authority from others books. Thefe earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to ev'ry fixed star, Have no more profit of their fhining nights,

Than thofe that walk, and wot not what they are.
Too much to know, is to know nought but fame;
And ev'ry godfather can give a name.

Shakespear's Love's Labour's loft.
His learning favours not the fchool-like glofs,
That most confifts in echoing words and terms;
And fooneft wins a man an empty name:
Nor only long or far-fetch'd circumftance,
Wrapp'd in the curious gen'ralities of arts:
But a direct and analytick fum

Of all the worth and firft effects of arts.

Johnson's Poetafler. Man must not therefore rafhly science scorn,

But chufe, and read with care; fince learning is A bunch of grapes fprung up among the thorns; Where, but by caution, none the harm can mifs: Nor arts true riches read to understand,

But fhall, to please his tafte, offend his hand.

Lord Brooke on Human Learning.

Learning was firft made pilot to the world,
And in the chair of contemplation,
Many degrees above the burning clouds
He'd in his hand the nine-leaf'd marble book,
Drawn full of filver lines and golden ftars.
But farther, it was learning's place,

Till empty outfides, fhadows dawb'd with gold
Pluck'd him down headlong, then he loft his wits,"

And

And ever fince lives zany to the world;
Turns pageant-poet, toiler to the prefs;
Makes himself cheap, detefted, hiss'd, and stale
To every bubble and dull groom:

Who, for his outfides gawdy, will prefume
To make poor wit a hackney to his pride:
And with blunt rowell'd jefts fpur-gall his fide,
Till his foul bleed. O, I am more than mad,
To fee mere fhadows, cenfure and controul
The fubftance, worthier both in fenfe and foul.
Day's Law Tricks.

Learning and arts are theories, no practicks:
To understand is all they ftudy to;

Men ftrive to know too much, too little do.

Middleton and Rowley's World tofs'd at Tennis.

Learning is an addition beyond

Nobility of birth; honour of blood,

Without the ornament of knowledge, is

But a glorious ignorance.

Shirley's Lady of Pleafure.

What fab❜lous errors learning is attended with?

Plato's five worlds, their fempiternity,

Pythagoras' tranfmigration, and opinions,
Judgment would blush to father.

Nabbs's Covent Garden.

1. How does learning flourish now In Athens ?

2. Just as virtue at the court;

For with the times affecting ignorance,

It has banish'd true induftrious labour thence;
And vicious loosenefs finding none refift,
Has fo engrofs'd the moft refined wits,
And by the terrors of her fenfual threats,
Bred fuch deluding crocodiles in their brains,
That like the thrifty fwift Egyptian dogs,
They scarcely taste of thofe fair feven-fold streams,

Into

Into whofe depth their industry should dive:
And having only got a feeming face
Of fuperficial knowledge, 'mongft the grofs,
And beaft-like fenfe-conceiving multitude;
They moft ambitioufly feek and pursue
Vulgar applaufe for their poor outfide skill;
And by fuch mud-wall stairs, do often rife
Up to the top of abus'd dignities.

Jones's Adrafta.
Whoe'er, faid he, in thy firft ftory looks,
Shall praise thy wife converfing with the dead :
For with the dead he lives, who is with books,
And in the camp, death's moving palace, bred.

Wife youth, in books and battles early finds
What thoughtless lazy men perceive too late ;
Books fhew the utmost conquefts of our minds;
Battles, the best of our lov'd bodies fate.

Yet this great breeding, join'd with king's high blood,
Whofe blood ambition's fever over-heats
May spoil digeftion, which would elfe be good:
As ftomachs are deprav'd with highest meats.

For though books ferve as diet to the mind;
If knowledge early got, felf.value breeds,

By falfe digeftion it is turn'd to wind:

And what fhould nourish, on the eater feeds. Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert. The learned teach, but what they teach, not do; And ftanding fill themfelves, make others go.

Denham.

Think on your own decrepid age; and knów
That day, by nature's poffibility,

Cannot be far from hence, when you must leave
Those wealthy hoards that you fo bafely lov'd,

And

And carry nothing with thee, but the guilt
Of impious getting: Then, if you would give
To pious ufes, what you cannot keep,
Think what a wretched charity it is?
And know this act fhall leave a greater stain
On your detefted memory, than all
Those seeming deeds of charity can have
A pow'r to wash away; when men shall say,
In the next age, this goodly hofpital,

This houfe of alms, this fchool, though feeming fair,
Was the foul iffue of a curfed murder,

And took foundation in a kinfman's blood.
The privilege that rich men have in evil,
Is, that they go unpunifh'd to the devil.,

gave, when laft I was about to die, The poets of this ifle a legacy;

May's Old Couple.

Each fo much wealth, as a long union brings
T'induftrious ftates, or victory to kings:

So much as hope's clos'd eyes, could wish to fee,
Or tall ambition reach; I gave them thee:
But as rich men, who in their fickness mourn
That they must go, and never more return
To be glad heirs unto themselves, to take
Again, what they unwillingly forfake;
As thofe bequeath their treasure when they die,
Not out of love, but fad neceffity;

So I, they thought, did cunningly refign
Rather than give, what could no more be mine :
And they receiv'd thee not, from bounteous chance,
Or me, but as their own inheritance.

Sir W. Davenant to Endimion Porter.
LIBE L.

Since they dare not fpeak; the pillars now,
And pafquils will by a more dang❜rous way
Traduce his name, and defamations throw,

Which wound him worse; Which made Severus fay,

That