529. The most promising hopes often blasted.

As in the sweetest bud

The eating canker dwells, so eating love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

As the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly; blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.

Yield not thy neck

To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind
Still ride in triumph over all mischance.

2-i. 1.

23-iii. 3.

Conquer fortune's spite,

23-iv. 6.

By living low, where fortune cannot hurt you.

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,

But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown over-board,
The cable broke, the holding anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood?
Yet lives our pilot still: Is 't meet, that he
Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,
With tearful eyes, add water to the sea,

And give more strength to that which hath too much;
Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,
Which industry and courage might have saved?
23-v. 4.

533.

Calamity lightened by fortitude.

He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears But the free comfort, which from thence he hears: But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow, That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.

37-i. 3.

Foundations fly the wretched; such, I mean,
Where they should be relieved.

31-iii. 6.

Ah! when the means are gone, that buy this praise, The breath is gone whereof this praise is made: Feast won-fast lost; one cloud of winter showers, These flies are couch'd.

If ever you have look'd on better days;

27-ii. 2.

If ever been, where bells have knoll'd to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;

If ever from your eye-lids wiped a tear,

And know what 't is to pity and be pitied;

Let gentleness my strong enforcement be. 10—ii. 7.

537.

Adversity, the test of character.

In the reproof of chance

Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail

Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk ?

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis g, and anon, behold

The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,

Like Perseus' horse: Where's then the saucy boat,
Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now
Co-rivall❜d greatness? either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valour's show, and valour's worth, divide,
In storms of fortune: For, in her ray and brightness,
The herd hath more annoyance by the brizeh,
Than by the tiger: but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled under shade, why, then the thing of couragei,

The daughter of Neptune.

h The gad-fly that stings cattle.

i It is said of the tiger, that in storms and high winds he rages and roars most furiously.

As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize,
And with an accent tuned in self-same key,
Returns to chiding fortune.

Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

539.

Prosperity and adversity.

Prosperity is the very bond of love;

26-i. 3.

10-ii. 1.

Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together

Affliction alters.

One of these is true:

I think affliction may subdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

13-iv. 3.

Poor and content, is rich, and rich enoughk;
But riches, fineless, is as poor as winterm,
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.

541.

The effects of poverty and riches.

Twinn'd brothers of one womb,

Whose procreation, residence, and birth,

37-iii. 3.

Scarce is dividant,-touch them with several fortunes; The greater scorns the lesser: Not nature,

To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune,
But by contempt of nature".

Raise me this beggar, and denude that lord;
The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,

The beggar native honour.

It is the pasture lards the browser's sides,
The want that makes him lean.

"I have learned, in whatsoever state

be content."-Phil. iv. 11.

1 Endless, unbounded.

27-iv. 3.

am, therewith to

Winter, producing no fruits. "i.e. Human nature, besieged as it is by misery, admonished as it is of want and imperfection, when elevated by fortune, will despise beings of nature like its own.

H

542. Riches cannot procure happiness for their

possessors.

The aged man that coffers up his gold,

Is plagued with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits;
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless barns the harvest of his wits;
Having no other pleasure of his gain,
But torment that it cannot cure his pain.
So then he hath it, when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his young;
Who in their pride do presently abuse it;
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long,
The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours,

Even in the moment that we call them ours. Poems.

543. Riches not true which are to be courted.

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:

They are but beggars that can count their worth.

544.

Happiness, where delusive.

35-ii. 6.

O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!

545.

10-v. 2

The instability of human happiness.
This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him:
The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost;
And,-when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening,-nips his fruit P,
And then he falls.

• Imagination.

25-iii. 2.

P Root is received by all the commentators, but evidently wrong; if fruit be taken, then the metaphor throughout is complete. In confirmation of this, it may be observed that frosts do not nip the roots of trees and plants; they are so deep in the earth as to be protected from the influence of frosts. And it is therefore not to be thought that Shakspeare, who was so minute and accurate an observer of nature, should have written root.

546. The instability of human happiness.

Then was I as a tree,

Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night,
A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,

Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
And left me bare to weather.

31-iii. 3.

547. Real happiness, where chiefly found.

They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing: It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner 9 by white hairs, but competency lives longer. 9-i. 2.

There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 't is not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come the readiness is all.

549.

Trust in providence.

He that hath the steerage of my course,

36-v. 2.

Direct my sailr!

35-i. 4.

22-ii. 1.

When holy and devout religious men,

Are at their beads', 't is hard to draw them thence:

So sweet is zealous contemplation.

I myself will lead a private life,

And in devotion spend my latter days,

24-iii. 7.

To sin's rebuke, and my Creator's praise". 23-iv. 6.

a Sooner comes, sooner acquires, becomes old.

"In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct

thy paths."-Prov. iii. 6.

"God is a spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."-John iv. 24. "For we

are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." -Phil. iii. 3.

+ Prayers.

"A holy resolution.