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The stones are hard; or pick the mortar
From an aged wall, and fwallow it most greedily.
Sir W. Davenant's News from Plymouth.
What's virginity?

A fomething nothing, fingularity,
Unfociable, fo flightly reckon'd of,

That either fex, but to thy number grown,

Has a defire to leave it.

Alexander Brome's Cunning Lovers.
VOWS.

Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
And he wants wit, that wants refolved will
To learn his wit, t'exchange the bad for better.

Shakespear's Two Gentlemen of Verona. 1. He hath giv'n count'nance to his fpeech, my lord. With almost all the holy vows of heav'n.

2. Ay, fpringes to catch woodcocks! I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the foul
Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, oh my daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Ev'n in their promife, as it is a making,
You must not take for fire. For lord Hamlet,
Believe fo much in him, that he is young;
And with a larger tether may he walk,
Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that die which their investments fhew,
But meer implorers of unholy fuits,
Breathing like fanctify'd and pious bawds,
The better to beguile.

Shakespear's Hamlet.
Are vows fo cheap with women? or the matter
Whereof they are made, that they are writ in water,
And blown away with wind? or doth their breath
Both hot and cold at once, threat life and death?
Who could have thought fo many accents sweet
Tun'd to our words, fo many fighs should meet
Blown from our hearts, fo many oaths and tears

Sprinkled

Sprinkled among, all fweeter by our fears,
And the divine impreffion of ftol'n kisses,

That feal'd the reft, could now prove empty bliffes ?
Did you draw bonds to forfeit ? fign to break?
Or muft we read you quite from what you speak,
And find the truth out the wrong way? or must
He firft defire you falfe, would with you juft.

John fon's Underwoods.

O they must ever ftrive to be fo good;
Who fells his vow is ftamp'd the flave of blood.

Tho. Middleton's Phonix.

-These are feeble vows,

Made only by our fears we ought to have

Our reafon undifmay'd,

when e'er a promise

Can force performance.

Habbington's Queen of Arragon.

First, let me feek my vows where they were feal'd,
They were fo ftrictly kept, that I fhall find
Them warm, as if but newly breath'd-

These are the funeral rights of love.

Sir W. Davenant's Unfortunate Lovers.
Why, fince you Orgo's words fo foon believe,
Will you lefs civilly fufpect my vows?

My vows which want the temple's feal, will bind
(Though private kept) furer than publick laws;
For laws but force the body, but my mind
Your virtue councels, whilft your beauty draws.
Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert

1. For 'tis in vain to waste
Thy breath for them the fatal vow is past.
2. To break that vow is jufter, than commit
A greater crime, by your preferving it.

1. The gods themfelves their own will beft exprefs
To like the vow, by giving the fuccefs.

Sir Robert Howard's Indian Queen. When vows with vows, altars with altars jarr, It seems to breed in heav'n a civil war.

M 6

Crown's Juliana.
USUR-

USUR PATION.

A fcepter fnatch'd with an unruly hand,
Must be as boiftrously maintain'd, as gain'd:
And he, that stands upon a flipp'ry place,
Makes nice of no vile hand to hold him up.

Shakespear's King John.
Pirates may make cheap penn'worths of their pillage,
And purchase friends, and give to courtezans,
Still revelling, like lords, till all be gone;
While as the filly owner of the goods

Weeps over them, and wrings his hapless hands,
And shakes his head, and trembling stands aloof,
While all is fhar'd, and all is born away,

Ready to ftarve, and dares not touch his own:
So York muft fit, and fret, and bite his tongue,
While his own lands are bargain'd for and fold.

Shakespear's Second Part of K Henry VI.

For tho' ufurpers fway the rule a while,

Yet heav'ns are juft, and time fuppreffeth wrongs.
Shakespear's Third Part of K. Henry VI,
To keep an ufurp'd crown, a prince muft swear,
Forfwear, poifon, murder, and commit all
Kind of villaines, provided it be

Cunningly kept from the eyes of the world.

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Chapman's Alphonfus. Think what the worft have done; what they enjoy, That pluck down ftates to put up private laws, Whom fame ennobles whilft she would destroy.

Lord Brooke's Alaham.

All ufurpers have the falling fickness,

They cannot keep up long.

Middleton's Mayor of Quinborough. Whilft you ufurp thus, and my claim deride, If you admire the vengeance I intend, I more fhall wonder where you got the pride To think me one you fafely may offend.

Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert.

'Tis love, not faction, where the good Confpire to kill ufurping blood.

Killegrew's Confpiracy.

WANT.

ANT that torments us moft,

WWhofe worth appears in being loft.

Brandon's Octavio.

"Twere beft, not call; I dare not call; yet famine, 'Ere it clean o'erthrow nature, makes it valiant. Plenty and peace, breed cowards; hardness ever Of hardiness is mother.

Shakespear's Cymbeline. It hath been taught us from the primal ftate, That he, which is, was wifh'd, untill he were; And the ebb'd man, (ne'er lov'd, till ne'er worth love,) Comes dear'd, by being lack'd.

Shakespear's Antony and Cleopatra. Men ne'er are fatisfy'd with what they have; But, as a man match'd with a lovely wife, Whon his most heav'nly theory of her beautys Is dull'd, and quite exhaufted with his practife, He brings her forth to feafts; where he, alas, Falls to his viands with no thought like others, That think him bleft in her; and they, (poor men) Court, and make faces, offer fervice, fweat With their defire's contention, break their brains For jefts, and tales, fit mute, and lose their looks, (Far out of wit, and out of countenance): So all men elfe, do, what they have, transplant, And place their wealth in thirft of what they want.

Chapman's Second Part of Byron's Confpiracy. The only plague, from men, than reft doth reave, Is, that they weigh their wants, not what they have. E. of Sterline's Julius Cæfar.

Why

Why should we grieve at want?

Say the world made thee her minion, that

Thy head lay in her lap, and that the danc'd thee
On her wanton knee, fhe could but give thee a whole
World; that's all, and that all's nothing: the world's
Greatest part cannot fill up one corner of thy heart.
Say, the three corners were all fill'd, alas!

Of what art thou poffeft? a thin-blown glass,
Such as by boys are puff'd into the air.

Were twenty kingdoms thine, thou'dft live in care;
Thou could't not fleep the better, nor live longer,
Nor merrier be, nor healthfuller, nor stronger?
If then thou want'ft, thus make that want thy pleasure,
No man wants all things, nor has all in measure.

Dekker's Second Part of the Honeft Whore. Your Wolf no longer feems to be a wolf,

Then when she's hungry.

Webfter's White Devil.

Want made him feared more than his difgrace:
As 'tis obferv'd, that Catiline ne'er meant
His country's ruin, 'till his means were spent.

Aleyn's Henry VII.
What though the fcribe of Florence doth maintain,
To keep men quiet, is to keep them fcant:
Clouds of examples, and all Henry's reign

Refell him, whofe rebellions fprung from want.
Want's a ftrange herald! For fome men had bore
No arms at all, unless they had been poor.

To Men exhauft, and worn with penury,
New things are pleafing, and the old ingrate,
And innovation is their remedy:

Rebellions are the monfters of a state;
And nature fhews, that they proceed no lefs
From the defect of matter, than th' excess.

They who to fortune's loweft form are thrown,
To ruin, and confufion do aspire,

As if another's wound could falve their own;
And when their own Eftates are set on fire,

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