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Of a poor worm. Thy beft of reft, is fleep,
And that thou oft provok'it; yet grofly fear'it
Thy death, which is no more. Thou'rt not thy felfs
For thou exifts on many a thousand grains,
That iffue out of duft. Happy thou art not;
For what thou haft not, ftill thou striv'ft to get;
And what thou haft, forget'it. Thou art not certain;
For thy complection fhifts to ftrange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an afs, whofe back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'ft thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloadeth thee. Friend thou haft none;
For thy own bowels, which do call thee fire,
The mere effufion of thy proper loins,
Do curfe the gout, ferpigo, and the rheum,

For ending thee no fooner. Thou haft nor youth, nor age;
But as it were an after-dinner's fleep,

Dreaming on both; for all thy bleffed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palfy'd eld; and when thou'rt old and rich,
Thou'ft neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this,
That bears the name of life? yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
That makes thefe odds all even!

Shakespear's Measure for Meafure.

Life doth her great actions spell,
By what was done and wrought
In feason, and fo brought

To light her; her measures are, how well

Each fyllable anfwer'd, and was form'd; how fair These make the lines of life, and that's her air.

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be;

Or ftanding long an oak, three hundred year
To fall a log, at laft, dry, old, and fear:

A lily of a day,

Is fairer far, in May,

Although

Although it fall, and die that night;
It was the plant, and flow'r of light:
In fmall proportions, we just beauties fee:
And in fhort measures, life may perfect be.

He makes a ftate

Johnfon's Underwoods.

In life, that can employ it; and takes hold
On the true caufes, ere they grow too old.
Delay is bad, doubt worfe, depending worst :
Each beft day of our life escapes us first.

Then fince we, more than many, these truths know;
Though life be short, let us not make it fo.

Johnson's Epigrams. But men at once life feem to love, and loath; Running to lose it, and to fave it both.

Daniel's Civil War. Her days are peace, and fo fhe ends her breath; True life, that knows not what's to die, till death. Daniel's Rofamund. 1. Men by all means this blast of breath prolong. 2. Men fhould ftrive to live well, not to live long. And I would spend this momentary breath, To live by fame, for ever after death.

E. of Sterline's Julius Cafar. Then let us live, fince all things change below; When rais'd moft high, as those who once may fall, And hold, when by dilafters brought more low, The mind ftill free, whatever elfe be thral : Thefe lords of fortune, fweeten ev'ry state ; Who can command themselves, tho' not their fate.

Count not how many years he is bereav'd ;
But those which he poffefs'd, and had receiv'd :
If I may tread no longer on this stage,
Though others think me young; it is mine age:
For whofo hath his fates full period told,
He full of years departs, and dieth old.

Ibid.

Brown's Paftorals.

"Tis a fport to live

When life is irkfome; if we will not hug
Profperity in others, and contemn

Affliction in our felves.

John Ford's Lover's Melancholy. Our life is nothing, but a winter's day;... Some only break their faft, and fo away: Others ftay dinner, and depart full-fed; The deepest age but fups and goes to bed : He's most in debt, that lingers out the day; Who dies betimes, has lefs, and lefs to pay.

Quarles.
You'll tell me, man ne'er dies, but changeth life;
And happ❜ly for a better. He's happiest
That goes the right way fooneft: Nature fent us
All naked hither; and all the goods we had
We only took on credit with the world:

And that the best of men are but mere borrowers.;
Though fome take longer day.

Richard Brome's Damoiselle.
As clouds of incenfe 'bove the altars come,
Yet all thofe clouds lay treafur'd up i'th' gum;
And maffy gold rack'd into threads and wire,
Gains no more weight than when it kept intire ;
So was thy life: it might gain breadth, and rise,
And purchase more extent, but not more price.

Whose life with care is overcast,
That man's not faid to live, but laft:
Nor is't a life, feven years to tell;
But for to live that half feven well.

Lleuellin

Life ill preferv'd, is worfe than bafely loft.

Herrick.

Sir W. Davenant's Siege of Rhodes.

O trivial property of life! fome do

Attend the mighty war, and make divinity
Their yoke; till for the fport of kings they but
Augment the number of the dead. Some walk
In flippery paths of court, and feed on

Silent

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Silent fmiles; fome travel in the fearch of
Human arts, but knowledge is referv'd; she
Sits fo high in clouds, we cannot reach her
With our eye or if with patient steps we
To her climb, death fays, we cannot reach her
With our time. For wither'd age arrives, when
Numb'ring on our griefs, not years, the tedious
Space of life we ftraight accufe; for life is
Like the fpan

Forc'd from a gouty hand; which, as it gains
Extent, and active length, the more it pains.

Sir W. Davenant's Juft Italian.
Our date, how fhort fo e'er, muft us content:
When a good actor doth his part present,

In ev'ry act he our attention draws,

That at the last he may find just applaufe:
So, though but short, yet we must learn the art
Of virtue, on this stage to act our part;
True wisdom muft our actions fo direct,
Not only the leaft plaudite to expect;

But grieve no more, how long that part fhould laft,
Than husbandmen, because the spring is paft :

The fpring, like youth, fresh bloffoms doth produce; But autumn makes them ripe, and fit for use.

Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are;
Or like the fresh spring's gawdy hue,
Or filver drops of morning dew;
Or like a wind that chafes the flood;
Or bubbles which on water stood;
Ev'n fuch is man, whose borrow'd light
Is ftraight call'd in, and paid to night.
The wind blows out; the bubble dies;
The fpring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew dries up; the ftar is fhot;
The flight is paft; and man forgot.

Denham.

Bishop King.

Then

LOVE.

Then hark, ye gentle knights, and ladies free,
My hard mishaps, that ye may learn to shun;
For though fweet love to conquer glorious be;
Yet is the pain thereof, much greater than the fee.
Spenfer's Fairy Queen.
Yet first he caft by treaty and by trains,

Her to perfuade, that ftubborn fort to yield:
For greater conqueft of hard love he gains,

That works it to his will, than he that it conftrains.

For love I muft, and love I will,
Though all the world say no.
The gods I hope will not be mov'd,
Such fharp revenge to take,

On thofe which err, but in fuch faults,
As they themselves did make.

Were it difhonour to be kind,

To thofe we best esteem;

Great Jove himself could not be free,
From fuch difgrace I deem.

Spenfer, Ibid.

Brandon's Antony to Octavia.

The eagle's feathers confume the feathers
Of all others; and love's defire corrupts
All other virtues.

A heart full of coldness, a sweet full of
Bitternefs, a pain full of pleafantness,

Lilly's Gallathea

Which maketh thoughts have eyes, and hearts ears; bred
By defire, nurs'd by delight, wean'd by jealousy,

Kill'd by diffembling, buried by

Ingratitude; and this is love.

Lilly, Ibid.

They say, base men, being in love; have then

A nobility in their natures, more

Than is native to them.

VOL II.

Shakespear's Othello.

1

1. WCupid

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