Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	place_n	time_n	write_v	2,965	5	5.2112	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A08000	The anatomie of absurditie contayning a breefe confutation of the slender imputed prayses to feminine perfection, with a short description of the seuerall practises of youth, and sundry follies of our licentious times. No lesse pleasant to be read, then profitable to be remembred, especially of those, who liue more licentiously, or addicted to a more nyce stoycall austeritie. Compiled by T. Nashe.	Nash, Thomas, 1567-1601.	1589 (1589)	STC 18364; ESTC S110083	31,239	46

learning haue folowed two things sweetnes of verse and variety of inuention knowing that delight doth prick men forward to the attaining of knowledge and that true things are rather admirde if they be included in some wittie fiction like to Pearles that delight more if they be deeper sette in gold Wherfore séeing Poetry is the very same with Philosophy the fables of Poets must of necessitie be fraught with wisedome knowledge as framed of those men which haue spent all their time and studies in the one and in the other For euen as in Uines the Grapes that are fayrest and sweetest are couched vnder the branches that are broadest and biggest euen so in Poems the thinges that are most profitable are shrouded vnder the Fables that are most obscure neither is there almost any poeticall fygment wherein there is not some thing comprehended taken out either of Histories or out of the Phisicks or Ethicks wher vpon Erasmus Roterdamus very wittilie termes Poetry a daintie dish seasoned with delights of euery kind of discipline Nowe whether ryming be Poetry I referre to the iudgment of the learned yea let the indifferent Reader diuine what deepe misterie can be placed vnder plodding méeter Who is it that reading Beuis of Hampton can forbeare laughing if he marke what scambling shyft he makes to ende his verses a like I will propound three or foure payre by the way for the Readers recreation The Porter said by my snout It was Sir Beuis that I let out or this He smote his sonne on the breast That he neuer after spoke with Clark nor Priest or this This almes by my crowne Giues she for Beuis of South-hamptoune or this Some lost a nose some a lip And the King of Scots hath a ship But I let these passe as worne out absurdities meaning not at this instant to vrge as I might the like instance of Authors of our time least in laying foorth their nakednesse I might seeme to haue discouered my mallice imitating Aiax who obiecting more irefully vnto Vlysses flattery detected him selfe of follie As these men offend in the impudent publishing of witles vanitie so others ouershoote thēselues as much another waie in sencelesse stoicall austeritie accounting Poetrie impietie and witte follie It is an old Question and it hath beene often propounded whether it were better to haue moderate affections or no affections The Stoicks said none The Peripaticians answered to haue temperate affections and in this respect I am a professed Peripatician mixing profit with pleasure and precepts of doctrine with delightfull inuention Yet these men condemne them of lasciuiousnes vanitie and curiositie who vnder fayned Stories include many profitable morrall precepts describing the outrage of vnbridled youth hauing the reine in their owne hands the fruits of idlenes the of-spring of lust and how auaileable good educations are vnto vertue In which their preciser censure they resemble thē that cast away the nutte for mislike of the shell are like to those which loath the fruite for the leaues accounting the one sower because y ● other is bitter It may be some dreaming dunce whose bald affected eloquence making his function odious better beséeming a priuie then a pulpit a misterming Clowne in a Comedy then a chosen man in the Ministerie will cry out that it bréedes a scabbe to the conscience to peruse such Pamphlets béeing indeed the display of their duncerie and bréeding a mislike of such tedious dolts barbarisme by the view of their rethoricall inuention Such trifling studies say they infect the minde and corrupt the manners as though the minde were only conuersant in such toies or shold continuallie stay where the thoughts by chaunce doo stray The Sunne beames touching the earth remaine still from whence they came so a wyse mans mind although sometimes by chance it wandereth here and there yet it hath recourse in staied yéeres to that it ought But graunt the matter to be fabulous is it therfore friuolous Is there not vnder Fables euen as vnder the shaddowe of greene and florishing leaues most pleasant fruite hidden in secrete and a further meaning closely comprised Did not Virgill vnder the couert of a Fable expresse that diuine misterie which is the subiect of his sixt ●glogue I am noua progenis coelo demittis alto I could send you to Ouid who expresseth the generall Deluge which was the olde worldes ouerthrowe in the Fable of Deucalion and Pirrha vnder which vndoubtedly it is manifest although diuers Authors are of cōtrarie opinion he meaneth Noes floodde in so much as there is a place in Lucian in his booke De Siria Dea by the which it appeareth that by Deucalions Deluge is vnderstoode not as some will that Enundation whereby in times past Greece and Italie was ouerflowne and the Ile Atlanta destroied but that vniuersall flood which was in the time of Noe For thus Lucian writeth in that place that it was receiued for a cōmon opinion among the Grecians that this generation of men that nowe is hath not béen from the beginning but that it which first was wholy perrished and this second sort of men which now are be of a newe creation growing into such a multitude by Deucalion and Pirrhas meanes As touching the men of the first worlde thus much saith he is committed to memorie that when as they began to be puft vppe with pride of their prosperitie they enterprised all iniquitie priuiledged by impunitie neither regarding the obseruation of oath nor the violation of hospitalitie neither fauouring the fatherlesse nor succouring the helplesse whereuppon in lieu of their crueltie they were plagued with this calamitie the springs brake foorth and ouerflowed their bounded banks y ● watrie clowdes with pashing showres vncessantlie sending down their vnreasonable moysture augmented the rage of the Ocean so that whole fieldes and mountaines could not satis-fie his vsurping furie but Citties wyth their suburbs Townes with their streetes Churches with their porches were nowe the walke of the waues the dennes of the Dolphin and the sporting places of the huge Leuiathan men might haue fisht where they sold fish had they not by the suddaine breaking foorth of the showres been made a pray vnto fish the child in the cradle could not be saued by the embra●ings of the dying mothe● the aged Criple remouing his wearie steps by stilts was faine to vse them in steed of Oares till at length his dismaied gray haires despairing of the sight of any shoare gaue place to death and was swallowed vppe in the deepe and so the bellie of the Whale became his graue The earth after this sort béeing excluded from the number of the Elements there was no memorie left of mankinde in this watry world but onely in Deucalions Arke who in regarde of his prudence and pietie was reserued to this seconde generation who hauing made a great Arke wherin he put his wife and children tooke two beastes of euery kind as wel Lions as Serpents Hawkes as Partriches