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but the hurtful He laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek only the things whereby we may perish, and bring them forth, when God and Nature hath buried them. We covet superfluous things, when it were more honour for us if we could contemn necessary. What need hath Nature of silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins? She requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think no wealth enough 10 but such a state for which a man may be brought into a præmunire, begged,' proscribed, or poisoned? O! if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet and groin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, 15 rate? They are pleased with cockleshells, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews, 10 ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare; what velvets, tissues, 11 embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and

all away in a day? And shall that which could not fill the expectation of few hours, entertain and take up our whole lives, when even it appeared as superfluous to the possessors as to 5 me that was a spectator? The bravery was shown, it was not possessed; while it boasted itself it perished. It is vile, and a poor thing to place our happiness on these desires. Say we wanted them all, famine ends famine.

De stultitia.12-What petty things they are we wonder at, like children that esteem every trifle, and prefer a fairing13 before their fathers! What difference is between us and them but that we are dearer fools, coxcombs at a higher

whistles, hobbyhorses, and such like; we with statues, marble pillars, pictures, gilded roofs, where underneath is lath and lime, perhaps loam. Yet we take pleasure in the lie, and

only in our walls and ceilings, but all that we
call happiness is mere painting and gilt, and
all for money.
What a thin membrane14 of
honour that is, and how hath all true reputation
fallen, since money began to have any! Yet
the great herd, the multitude, that in all other
things are divided, in this alone conspire and
agree to love money. They wish for it, they
embrace it, they adore it, while yet it is pos-

uncertain his life is; he were in a better way 20 are glad we can cozen ourselves. Nor is it to happiness than to live the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of fashions. But we make ourselves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve fame and ambition, which is an equal slavery. Have not I seen the pomp of a whole 25 kingdom, and what a foreign king could bring hither also to make himself gazed and wondered at, laid forth, as it were, to the show, and vanish 8i. e., to incur the penalty (viz. loss of the protection of the Crown, forfeiture of goods, etc.) provided in one 30 sessed with greater stir and torment than it or more of the laws known as the Statutes of Praemunire, These statutes obtained their name from the first words of a writ issued under them; Praemunire facias A. B., etc. you shall cause A. B. to be forewarned that he appear before us etc.

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is gotten.

12 Of Folly.

13 An article purchased at a fair, a present brought from a fair.

14 Covering, tissue. The deceitful outward show, the (lath and lime, the painting and gilt) is but a thin and superficial layer of honor.

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By spoiling those that live, and wronging dead;

That they may drink in pearl, and couch their head

In soft, but sleepless down; in rich, but restless bed.

O, let them in their gold quaff dropsies down! O, let them surfeits feast in silver bright! 165 Whilst sugar hires the taste the brain to drown, And bribes of sauce corrupt false appetite,

His master's rest, health, heart, life, soul, to sell;

Thus plenty, fulness, sickness, ring their knell.

Death weds, and beds them; first in grave, and then in Hell.

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The dying swan, when years her temples pierce,

In music's strains breathes out her life and verse, 190 And chanting her own dirge tides on her watʼry hearse.

What, shall I then need seek a patron out:
Or beg a favour from a mistress' eyes,

To fence my song against the vulgar rout:
Or shine upon me with her geminies??

What care I, if they praise my slender
song?

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Or reck I, if they do me right or wrong? A shepherd's bliss nor stands, nor falls, to every tongue. . .

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Draw out their silken lives:-nor silken pride!

His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need, Not in that proud Sidonian tincture1 dy'd: No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright;

Nor begging wants his middle fortune

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bite: But sweet content exiles both misery and spite.

Instead of music, and base flattering tongues, Which wait to first salute my lord's uprise; The cheerful lark wakes him with early songs, And birds' sweet whistling notes unlock his

eyes.

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In country plays is all the strife he uses; Or sing, or dance, unto the rural Muses; And but in music's sports, all differences refuses.

His certain life, that never can deceive him, Is full of thousand sweets, and rich content:30 2 Gemini, twins, here "a pair of eyes," i. e. both her 3 Silk worms, Serian means pertaining to the Seres, an Asiatic people from whom the Greeks and Romans got their first silk.

eyes.

The Royal purple. This color (tincture) is more generally associated with Tyre, than with Sidon, as i the corresponding expression Tyrian dye.

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See how small room my infant Lord doth take, Whom all the world is not enough to hold. Who of his years, or of his age hath told? Never such age so young, never a child so old.

George Wither

1588-1667

THE AUTHOR'S RESOLUTION IN A

SONNET

(From Fidelia, 1615)

Shall I, wasting in despaire
Dye, because a woman's fair?

Or make pale my cheeks with care
Cause anothers Rosie arc?

Be she fairer than the Day
Or the flowry Meads in May,
If she think not well of me,
What care I how fair she be?

Shall my seely1 heart be pin'd
Cause I see a woman kind?
Or a well disposed Nature
Joyned with a lovely feature?
Be she Meeker, Kinder than
Turtle-dove or Pellican:

If she be not so to me,
What care I how kind she be?

Shall a woman's Vertues move
Me to perish for her Love?
Or her well deservings known
Make me quite forget mine own?
Be she with that Goodness blest
Which may merit name of best:
If she be not such to me,
What care I how Good she be?
Cause her Fortune seems too high
Shall I play the fool and die?
She that beares a Noble mind,
If not outward helpes she find,

Thinks what with them he would do,
That without them dares her woo.
And unlesse that Minde I see
What care I how great she be?

Great, or Good, or Kind, or Faire
I will ne're the more despaire:
If she love me (this believe)
I will Die ere she shall grieve.
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go,
For if she be not for me
What care I for whom she be?

A CHRISTMAS CAROL So now is come our joyful feast, Let every man be jolly;

Each room with ivy leaves is drest, And every post with holly.

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1 Used here in the sense of "simple," "artless," or "foolish."

Though some churls at our mirth repine, 5
Round your foreheads garlands twine,
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine,

And let us all be merry.

Now all our neighbours' chimnies smoke,
And Christmas blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with bak'd meats choke,
And all their spits are turning.

Without the door let sorrow lie,
And if for cold it hap could die,
We'll bury it in a Christmas pie;
And evermore be merry.

Now every lad is wondrous trim,

And no man minds his labour;

Our lasses have provided them

A bag-pipe and a tabor.

Young men and maids, and girls and boys
Give life to one another's joys;

And you anon shall by their noise

Perceive that they are merry.

Rank misers now do sparing shun,
Their hall of music soundeth;
And dogs thence with whole shoulders run,
So all things there aboundeth.

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15

20

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The country-folk themselves advance, For Crowdy-Mutton's' come out of France; And Jack shall pipe and Jyll shall dance, 30 And all the town be merry.

Ned Swash hath fetch'd his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel;

Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn

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With droppings of the barrel.

And those, that hardly all the year

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And whilst thus inspir'd we sing, And all the streets with echoes ring; Woods, and hills, and every thing Bear witness we are merry.

William Browne

1590-1645

BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS, 1613-16 (Book I. Song V)

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Now as an angler melancholy standing, Upon a green bank yielding room for landing, A wiggling yellow worm thrust on his hook, 640 Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook: Here pulls his line, there throws it in again, Mending his crook and bait, but all in vain, He long stands viewing of the curled stream; At last hungry pike, or well-grown breame, 645 Snatel at the worm, and hasting fast away He, knowing it a fish of stubborn sway, Puls up his rod, but soft; (as having skill) Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish's gill. Then all his line he freely yieldeth him, Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim Th' ensnared fish, here on the top doth scud, There, underneath the banks, then in the mud; And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal, That each one takes his hide or starting hole; 655 By this the pike, clean wearied, underneath A willow lies, and pants (if fishes breathe); Wherewith the angler gently pulls him to him, And, lest his haste might happen to undo him, Lays down his rod, then takes his line in hand, And by degrees getting the fish to land, Walks to another pool: at length is winner Of such a dish as serves him for his dinner: So when the climber half the way had got, Musing he stood, and busily 'gan plot, How (since the mount did always steeper tend)

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He might with steps secure his journey end. . . . Then, as a nimble squirrel from the wood, Ranging the hedges for his filbert-food,

Sits partly on a bough his brown nuts crack

ing,

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Till (with their crooks and bags) a sort of boys
(To share with him) come with so great a noise,
That he is forc'd to leave a nut nigh broke,
And for his life leap to a neighbor oak;
Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes; 700
Whilst thro' the quagmires and red water
plashes,

The boys run dabbling through thick and thin,
One tears his hose, another breaks his shin;
This, torn and tatter'd, hath with much ado 704
Got by the briars; and that hath lost his shoe;
This drops his band; that head-long falls f
haste;

Another cries behind for being last:

With sticks and stones, and many a sounding hollow,

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