Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	good_a	read_v	write_v	2,874	5	5.1956	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A12820	Staffords heauenly dogge: or The life, and death of that great cynicke Diogenes, whom Lertius stiles Canem Cœlestem, the heauenly dogge, by reason of the heauenly precepts he gaue Taken out of the best authors, and written to delight great hearts, and to raise as high as heauen the minds that now grouell on the earth, by teaching them how to ouercome all affections, and afflictions.	Stafford, Anthony.	1615 (1615)	STC 23128; ESTC S117802	17,172	108

If I were not DIOGENES I would wish my selfe ALEXANDER STAFFORDS Heauenly Dogge OR The life and death of that great Cynicke DIOGENES whom Laertius stiles Canem Coelestem the Heauenly Dogge By reason of the Heauenly precepts he gaue Taken out of the best Authors and written to delight great hearts and to raise as high as Heauen the minds that now grouell on the earth by teaching them how to ouercome all affections and afflictions LONDON Printed by George Purslowe for Iohn Budge and are to be sold at the great South-doore of Paules and at Brittaines Burse 1615. TO THE HONORAble my all-worthy and no lesse deare friend Sir IOHN WENTVVORTH Knight Baronet APplause attended mine eie noble Friend when I first read in a pleasing writer Amicos primū esse deligendos deinde diligendos that friends are first to bee chosen then to bee loued Notwithstanding my applause with mee it fell out otherwise when I first saw you who passed through mine eye into my heart where you shall euer sit Yet was not my affection so sottish but that disdaining to haue Foolish for an Epithete it went to my iudgement for approbation which in a short space satisfied it to the full of your compleate Worth And as I remember the foundation on which my iudgement encouraged my affection to build was the loue I discerned in you to those better studies to Schollers the best of men I saw that as GOD had giuen you an ability of minde so you not vnthankefull sought to pollish that excellent part Neither did you thinke it inough to beautifie your Soule but withall tooke a course to conforme it to Reason and to fortifie it against the forces of false Fortune To that purpose you made choyse of Seneca and other authors that might furnish you as well with the Helmet as with the Feather Of the same nature and I dare say of the same height is this Booke and therefore will deserue your reading It treateth of a strange inimitable man who had nothing yet neuer knew aduersity His happines was euer the same and he euer himselfe The cruell effects of Fortunes malice could neuer make him change his minde nor his countenance And so he liued as if shee had stood at his award and not hee at hers To you I dedicate this deare Dogge together with my hart That which made me set your Name before it was my ambition the mawe of which will be full when I shall haue the honour to be reputed your friend which vpon ocasion I will proue my selfe to bee with the hazzard of my life In death I will professe my loue to Sir IOHN WENTVVORTH and till then rest His fixed friend and seruant Antony Stafford TO THE MODEST READER THe wisest of Kings and men saies that of writing Bookes there is no end True saies a late but witty comment there is no end of writing Bookes which are written to no end The exposition seemes good and agreeable to the meaning of Salomon who in my opinion which I write not maintaine in all probability meaneth such Bookes when he saies that much reading is awearinesse to the flesh for certainely there are authors of which a man can neuer reade so much but he will still desire more according to that of Lipsius vpon Epictetus Pluris facio cum relego semper vt novum cum repetiui repetendum Amongst those Bookes which neuer can be read inough next to the sacred the morall take place which are written to an end as noble as are their effects admirable These are they which make vs men indeed without which as saith singular Seneca men would be but maiusculi pueri O my Reader let vs neuer abādon morality vnlesse we meane to banish all ciuility and giue our selues ouer to sensuality Neither let vs scorne these things because the Heathen writ them for set the three supernaturall workes aside taught vs in our Creede Creation Redemption and Sanctification and tell me good Reader in what we excell them In what goe we beyond them nay in what come we not short of them Are we not cōtent with their knowledge doe we not see the whole life of a moderne schollar spent onely to expound one of them God grant that we who haue receiued from them all their naturall helps and in a higher degree haue beene diuinely taught from aboue by Truth and Life it selfe all truth and goodnesse be not found vnthankfull for those humane gifts If we proudly vnder the pretence of learning diuinity despise the studies of humanity we shall do like him that greedily plucking a fruite throwes away the leaues that both adorned and defended it Let vs then admire Reader let vs then reuerence the Ancients from whose Ocean of knowledge haue flowed these Riuerets of ours And amongst all let vs not bestow more wonder vpon any then vpon the Heauenly Dogge this Booke treates of whom if I cannot stile the most learned certainely I may call the happiest of the Heathen His carriage was so strange and austere and his life so voide of perturbation that I wonder the superstitious people of his time did not adore him as a God or at least as a Semo A Tubbe confined his body but his minde the bounds of the World could not limit I know not thy degree of admiration Reader but I vow that if Diogenes were now at Corinth with ioy to Corinth I would hie me and kisse his feete I had rather go thither to see him that hath the minde then a furlong to see him that hath onely the fortune of a King If this treatise giue not a perfect modell of his worth I craue no pardon Reader since I thinke any bastard languishing language vnable to expresse his excellencies As for his Oration to Alexander I thinke thou wilt thinke it not his owne They had many enteruiews and therfore no doubt much conference at all which hauing guessed some part thereof I may haue bit I confesse Diogenes made it not yet many things in it are his owne and Possibility saies they might haue beene spoken to Alexander Suppose the Oration were mine own I should in this imitate no worse a man then diuine Plato who in most of his writings makes Socrates speake for him or Epictetus who speakes more then a little in the person of this olde Cynicke Some things I haue borrowed of other Philosophers which if thou happenest to discouer carpe not at it but thank my iudgement that for thee did select them Thinke not the Spider which produceth a cobwebbe out of her owne body better then the Bee which gathereth her hony abroade Yet I acknowledge my selfe to be of his minde who held that a man should haue somthing à se as well as in se and therefore haue not so much tyred my wit with translation as I haue refreshed it with contemplation Whatsoeuer is borrowed or mine owne I here make thine for which my hope expectes thankes Though thou deny to stroke