Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
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Pages |
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B03453
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Friendship.
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Wither, George, 1588-1667.; Finch, Francis.
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1654
(1654)
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Wing F930A; ESTC R177055
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16,857
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44
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FRIENDSHIP To the truly honourable Mrs A.O. MADAM YOu have all the Right in the world to this Trifle for 't was first penn'd by your Commands is now by them made thus more legible whose Name then should it wear but yours whose only Patronage is enough to protect it could any thing that is yours want Protection Nothing but your VVill to have it so could have made me come so near the Presse as to make use of an iron pen for I am certainly assured it cannot bear a publick scrutiny nor is there any thing here fitted to the Pallat of the Times or that will relish a severe Reader My Comfort is it has past your Approbation which is all it asked and has received no advantage from the Presse but security from the errours of Transcribers if any could be found so vain and this I had some Reason to be solicitous of having given it so many blemishes and imperfections that nothing but one intire Blot could cure The few Copies I suffered to wear this character and none of those Voeniall secures me from all but mercifull eyes and if it were possible for me to hear it commended would secure me from vain glory too I remember my Lord of Cherbery having sent divers copies of a Book he printed to severall eminent persons beyond Sea and receiving thence as many gratulatory Complements was told by our excellent Selden if He would know what people thought of his Book He should suffer it to ly on the Stall and be sold by the Stationer for eighteen pence or two shillings apiece Indeed every Book an Authour gives is a Bribe and the Receivers Testimony made thereby rather his Civility then his Judgement 'T is an old observation that those Philosophers who wrote the most severe Tractates in contempt of glory still prefixed their names to those Pieces as loth to lose the glory of being such Contemners You who are the severest Self-denyer in the world have taught me another lesson this very Dedication may serve for a Testimony of that virtue in you and that desire of it in me For upon what other score can you bear with so triviall and to you at least so uselesse a Piece Or upon what other account could I wrap my Name in a Disguise and decline the publick Honour of being known so devotedly yours How beneficiall any thing in these following lines may prove to others I cannot prophesie to you I am sure it is very unnecessary who have already out-done and out-liv'd all that hath been or can be said of Friendship When I have said that I need not mention your other Virtues for in my Notion of Friendship they are included I dare not so much as name them here least you should think me though You would be the onely Person of that opinion a Flatterer which I hate as much if possible as I do Hell or love Heaven and the VVay thither which is an Endearment and Vnion with Lucasia and the being constantly and eternally March 30. 1654. Your most devoted faithfull Palaemon D. Noble Lucasia-Orinda T Is not without much regret as well as disadvantage to my self that I disobey any of your Commands But you ought not therefore to quarrel at my Disobedience for when you require things impossible as ingenious Discourses from Men that have it not about them you may be so mercifull as to allow your self mistaken in the merits of the Person whose obedience you exact and do him so much right as to acknowledge and preserve the Empire you still have by distinguishing between Impotency and Infidelity The assurance I have that you will not easily confound these two had begot some hope in me that my silence on a subject you are so absolutely Mistresse of Friendship should have a very candid Interpretation but since you thunder out Excommunications against it and in the onely Names I reverence to such a height as takes off all colour and thoughts of dispute Lucasia and Orinda I am resolved to give you a Testimony of my Obsequiousnesse though in it I must also of my Inability which you might much more to my advantage perhaps have concluded by my saying nothing How to begin I know not and if I find it as difficult to end I may possibly swell this into a bulk incongruous for a letter and I am sure aforehand it will neither have Method nor Solidity enough to deserve the appellation of a Treatise or Discourse Some order I would willingly observe without any confinement to strict Philosophicall Definitions of and inquiries into it or Historicall Deductions of its Origination Rise and Growth enumerated in severall Examples whereof we have little left besides the Names But however he that were happy enough in his Proficiency in so blessed a Mystery as Friendship as to pen all it deserved with all the accuratenesse desireable might as farre as I yet understand comprehend all under these three heads The Nature of it The Causes of it and the Benefit and Vse of it And these three I shall touch at First by the Nature of it I do not mean the Naturall Causes of it for that were to confound the first member of my Division with the second But by Nature here I mean Quality or Condition And perhaps it is not preposterous to see first what kind of thing this Friendship is before we ask whence it comes for hereby those who are not satisfied with the value and quality of it may spare further questions concerning it as uselesse and impertinent Some have been so prodigall in their Encomiums and descriptions of Love that they have not been content to keep the other Passions at a just distance and subjection but have quite swallowed them up and by making the objects of every Passion lovely in the eyes of that Passion whereby they are pursued have taken away the proper name of that Passion and anabaptised it Love And thus the Extreams of a Passion which hardly avoid being vitious where the Passion it self is virtuous must carry the plausible inscription of Love though Love it self be thereby brought into Detestation Ambition is hence stiled the Love of Honour Covetousnesse the Love of Money But it is not the name of Love can excuse much lesse transform Vice into Virtue for Love it self is like the Planet Mercury which hath no influence properly its own but follows the predomination of those other Planets with whom he is in Conjunction and so is good with the good bad with the bad and just so is Love vitious or virtuous according to its objects But reserving to every Passion its due Name and to Love its just Superiority I shall believe I have done that and Friendship Right together when I have said Love is the Crown and Perfection of all our Passions Friendship of our Love I bate not the highest pitch of Love our Love to God for Friendship crowns that too which I shall not take much pains to prove if