I KNOW there are few steps prisons and graves of princes.

between the

KING CHARLES.

WITH God I would have you begin and end, who is King of kings; the sovereign Disposer of the kingdoms of the world, who pulleth down one, and setteth up another. The best government and highest sovereignty you can attain to, is to be subject to him, that the sceptre of his word and Spirit may rule in your heart.

IBID.

IN all times, the princes of England have done something illegal to get money: but then came a parliament, and all was well; the people and the prince kist and were friends, and so things were quiet for a while. Afterwards there was another trick found out to get money, and after they had got it, another parliament was called to set all right, &c. constable,

But now, they have so outrun the

SELDEN.

R

LOVE,

All true lovers are

Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,

Save in the constant image of the creature
That is beloved.

SHAKSPEARE.

Love is the pleasant frenzy of the mind,
And frantic men in their mad actions shew
A happiness that none but madmen know.
'Tis an enchantment, where the reason 's bound,
But Paradise is in th' enchanted ground.

DRYDEN.

REMEMBER, when thou wert a sucking child, that then thou didst love thy nurse, and that thou wert fond of her. After a while, thou didst love the dry-nurse, and didst forget the other; after that, thou didst also despise her. So will it be with thee in thy liking in elder years; and therefore, though thou canst not forbear to love, yet forbear to link, and after a while thou shalt find an alteration in thyself, and see another face more pleasing than the first, second, or third love.

SIR WALTER RALEGH.

THE force of love, to those poor folk that feel it, is in many ways very strange, but no way stranger than that it doth so enchain the lover's judgment upon her that holds the reins of his

mind, that whatsoever she doth is ever in his eyes best. And that best being the continual motion of our changing life, turned by her to any other thing; that thing again becometh best, so that nature in each kind, suffering but one superlative, the lover only admits no positive. If she sit still, that is best, for so is the conspiracy of her several graces held best together, to make one perfect figure of beauty. If she walk, no doubt that is best, for, besides the making happy the more places by her steps, the very stirring adds a pleasing life to her native perfections. If she be silent, that without comparison is best, since by that means, the untroubled eye most freely may devour the sweetness of his object; but if she speak, he will take it upon his death, that is best; the quintessence of each word being distilled down into his affected soul.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

IT utterly subverts the course of nature, in making reason give place to sense, and man to woman. And truly I think, hereupon it first gat the name of love; for, indeed, the true love hath that excellent nature in it, that it doth transform the very essence of the lover into the thing loved, uniting, and, as it were, incorporating it with a secret and inward working. And herein do these kinds of loves imitate the excellent: for as the love of Heaven makes one heavenly, the love of virtue, virtuous; so doth the love of the world

make one become worldly; and this effeminate love of a woman doth so womanize a man, that if he yield to it, it will not only make him an Amazon, but a launder, a distaff, a spinner, or whatsoever other vile occupation their idle heads can imagine, and their weak hands perform.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

IT is a poor saying of Epicurus, "Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus;" as if man, made for the contemplation of Heaven and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself subject, though not of the mouth, as beasts are, yet of the eye, which was given him for higher purposes. It is a strange thing to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature and value of things, by this, that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas, it hath been well said, that the arch flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self; certainly the lover is more; for there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved, and therefore it was well said, "That it is impos"sible to love and to be wise. Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved, but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciproque; for it is a true rule, that

love is ever rewarded either with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret contempt.

By how much the more men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself! As for the other losses, the poets' relation doth well figure them, that he tat preferred Helena quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas ; for whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom.

LORD BACON.

THEY do best, who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life; for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men that they can no ways be true to their own ends.

I know not how, but martial men are given to love, I think it is but as they are given to wine, for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.

Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.

IBID.

R &