Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	find_v	great_a	know_v	2,951	5	3.3432	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35671	Letters upon several occasions written by and between Mr. Dryden, Mr. Wycherly, Mr. ----, Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Dennis, published by Mr. Dennis with a new translation of select letters of Monsieur Voiture.	Dennis, John, 1657-1734.; Dryden, John, 1631-1700.; Wycherley, William, 1640-1716.; Congreve, William, 1670-1729.; Voiture, Monsieur de (Vincent), 1597-1648.	1696 (1696)	Wing D1033; ESTC R6297	77,708	226

must be always with utmost Passion Madam Yours TO THE Marchioness of Rambouillet In Answer to a Letter of Thanks of hers Madam THô my Liberality should as you tell me surpass the Bounty of Alexander it would nevertheless be richly recompens'd by the Thanks which you have return'd me for it He himself as boundless as his Ambition was would have confin'd it to so rare a Favour He would have set more value upon this Honour than he did on the Persian Diadem and he would nev●r have envied Achilles the Praise which ●e receiv'd from Homer if he could but himself have obtain'd Yours Thus Madam on this Pinacle of G●or● on which I stand if I bear any Envy to his 't is not so much ●o that which he acquir'd himself as to that which you have bestow'd upon him and he has received no Honours which I do no● hold Inferior to mine unless it be that which you did him when you declar'd him your Gallant Neither his Vanity nor the rest of his Flatterers could ever persuade him to believe any thing that was so advantageous to him and the Quality of Son of Iupiter Hammon was by much less glorious to him than this But if any thing comforts me for the Jelousie which it has rais'd in me 't is this Madam that knowing you as well as I know you I am very well assur'd that if you have done him this Honour 't is not so much upon the account of his having been the greatest of Mankind as of his having been now these two thousand years no more However we here find cause to admire the Greatness of his Fortune which not being able yet to forsake him so many years after his Death has added to his Conquests a Person that gives them more●ustre than the Daughters and Wife of Darius and which has gain'd him a Mind more great than the World he Conquer'd I ought here to be afraid after your Example of Writing in too lofty a Style But how can the Writer be too sublime who writes of you and of A●exander I humbly beseech you Madam to believe that I have equal Passion for you with that which you shew for him and that the Admiration of your Virtues will oblige me to be always Madam Yours c. An Imitation of Monsieur De Voiture's Letter to Mademoiselle De Rambouillet Being an Answer to that by which she had inform'd him who was then with Monsieur in Exile that the Academy designed to abolish the Particle Car. For. That the Reader may be diverted with this Letter he is desir'd to suppose that there is a Club of Wits erected in London for the Regulation of the Tongue who have a Design to abolish For. Madam FOR being of so great Importance in our Tongue as it is I extreamly approve of the Resentment you shew for the Wrong they design to do it and I must needs declare that I expect no good from this Club of Wits which you mention since they are resolved to establish themselves by so great an● Oppression Even at at a time like this when Fortune is acting her Tragedies throughout all Europe I can behold nothing so deserving of Pity as when I see they are ready to Arraign and to Banish a Word which has so faithfully serv'd this Monarchy and which amidst all our English Confusions has always been of the side of those who were truly English For my part I cannot for my heart comprehend what reason they can alledge against a Word whose only business is to go before Reason and which has no other Employment than to usher it in I cannot imagine what Interest can oblige them to take away that which belongs to For to give it to Because that nor why they have a Mind to say with three Syllables that which they say with three Letters That which I am afraid of Madam i● this that after they have been guilty of this one Injustice they will not scruple at more perhaps they may have the Impudence to attack But and who knows if If may be any longer secure So that after they have depriv'd us of all those words whose business it is to bring others together the Wi●● will reduce us to the Language of Angels or if they cannot do that they will at least oblige us to speak only by Signs And here I must confess that your Observation is true viz. That no Example can more clearly shew us the Instability of Humane Affairs He who had told me some Years ago that I should have out-liv'd For I had thought had promis'd me a longer Life than the Patriarchs And yet we see that after he has maintain'd himself for some hundreds of years in full Force and Authority after he has been employ'd in the most Important Treaties and has assisted in the Councils of our Kings with Honour he is all of a Sudden fallen into Disgrace and threatned with a Violent end I now expect nothing less than to be terrify'd with lamentable Crys in the Air declaring to the World that the great For is Dead For the Death of the Great Cam or of the Great Pan was in my mind less Important I know if we consult one of the finest Wits of the Age and one whom I esteem with Passion he will tell us that 't is our Duty to condemn an Innovation like this that we ought to use the For of our Fathers as well as their Sun and their Soil and that we should by no means banish a Word which was in the Mouths of our Edwards and of our Henrys But you Madam are the Person who ar● principally oblig'd to undertake his Protection For since the Supreme Grace and the Sovereign Beauty of the English Tongue lies in yours you ought to command here with an Absolute Sway and with a Smile or a Frown give Life o● give Death to Syllables as uncontro●l'd as you do to Men. For this I believe you have already secur'd it from the imminent Danger which threatned it and by vouchsafing it a Place in your Letter have fix'd it i● a Sanctuary and a Mansion of Glory to which neither Envy nor Time can reach But here Madam I beg leave to assure you that I could not but be surpriz'd to see how Fantastick your Favours are I could not but think it strange that you who without Compassion could see a Thousand Lovers expire should not have the Heart to see a Syllable die If you had but had half the Care of me which you have shewn of For I should then have been happy in spight of ill Fortune Then Poverty Exile and Grief would scarce have had force to come near me If you had not deliver'd me from these Evils themselves you had freed me at least from the Sense of them But at a Time that I expected to receive consolation from yours I found that your kindness was only design'd to For and that his Banishment troubled you more than ours I must confess Madam

of those things on which seduced by Passion and Vulgar Opinion he sets an exorbitant Value and concerning whose Natures and Incertainty he is not very capable of making solid Reflections For thô Prudence may oblige a Man to secure a Competency yet never was any one by right Reason induced to seek Superfluities Sixthly Penury of thought supposes Littleness of Soul which is often requisite for the Succeeding in Business For a Block-head is Sordid enough to descend to Trick and Artifice which in Business are often necessary to procure Success unless they are more than supplied by a Prudence deriv'd from a Consummate Experience or from a great Capacity Thus have I endeavour'd to give the reason why a Fool succeeds better in Business than a Man of Wit who has a Multitude of thoughts and which fly at the Noblest Objects and who finds that there is something of pleasing and so noble in thinking rightly and more especially in the sublime Speculations of exalted Reason that he finds it intollerably irksome to descend to Action and abhors the very thought of being diligent in things for which he has an extream Contempt Thus you see that in some measure a Fool may be said to be better fitted out for Business than a Man of Wit But it is high time to distinguish For first when I say that a Block-head is fitted for Business I mean only for little Business For to affirm that he is qualified for Affairs that require Extent of Capacity would be a Contradiction in Terms Secondly when I affirm that a Man of Wit is less capacitated for Business I mean that he is less so as long as he keeps in his Natural Temper and remains in a State of Tranquility But if once he comes to be thrown out of that by the Force of a Violent Passion and fir'd with Zeal for his Country's Service or enflam'd by Ambition and Business can be made subservient to the gratifying of those Passions then I dare boldly affirm that one Man of Wit will go further than a Thousand of those who want it Of which it would be easie to give more than one Instance amongst our present Ministers But I will be contented with putting you in mind that none of the Romans had more Wit than Caesar and none of the French than Richelieu Before I conclude I must give you a Caution Which is that by the Word Blockhead I do not mean one that is stupid but that I apply that word according to the Language of you Men of Wit to one who thinks but a little And that on the other side by a Man of Wit I do not mean every Coxcomb whose Imagination has got the Ascendant of his little Reason but a Man like you Sir or our most Ingenious Friend in whom Fancy and Judgment are like a well-match'd Pair the first like an extraordinary Wife that appears always Beautiful and always Charming yet is at all times Decent and at all times Chast the Second like a Prudent and well-bred Husband whose very Sway shews his Complaisance and whose very Indulgence shews his Authority Octob. 30. I am Dear Sir Your most Humble Servant John Dennis To Mr. Dryden Sir THô no Man writes to his Friends with greater Ease or with more Chearfulness than my self and thô I have lately had the Presumption to place you at the Head of that small Party nevertheless I have experienc'd with Grief that in writing to you I have not found my old Facility Since I came to this place I have taken up my Pen several times in order to write to you but have constantly at the very Beginning found my self Damp'd and Disabled upon which I have been apt to believe that extraordinary Esteem may sometimes make the Mind as Impotent as a Violent Love does the Body and that the vehement Desire we have to exert it extremely decays our Ability I have heard of more than one lusty Gallant who thô he could at any time with Readiness and Vigour possess the Woman whom he lov'd but moderately yet when he has been about to give his darling Mistress whom he has vehemently and long desir'd the first last Proof of his Passion has found on a sudden that his Body has Jaded and grown resty under his Soul and gone backward the faster the more he has spurr'd it forward Esteem has wrought a like effect upon my Mind My extraordinary inclination to shew that I honour you at an extraordinary rate and to shew it in words that might not be altogether unworthy Mr. Dryden's Perusal incapacitates me to perform the very action to which it incites me and Nature sinks in me under the fierce Effort But I hope you will have the Goodness to pardon a Weakness that proceds from a Cause like this and to consider that I had pleas'd you more if I had honour'd you less Who knows but that yet I may please you if you encourage me to mend my Fault to which if you knew but the Place I am in Charity would engage you thô Justice could not oblige you For I am here in a Desart depriv'd of Company and depriv'd of News in a Place where I can hear nothing at all of the Publick and what proves it ten times more a Desart nothing at all of you For all who are at present concern'd for their Countrey 's Honour hearken more after your Preparatives than those for the next Campaigne These last may possibly turn to our Confusion so uncertain are the Events of War but we know that whatever you undertake must prove Glorious to England and thô the French may meet with Success in the Field by you we are sure to Conquer them In War there are a thousand unlook'd for accidents which happen every day and Fortune appears no where more like her self but in a Combat of Wit the more Humane Contention and the more Glorious Quarrel Merit will be always sure to prevail And therefore thô I can but hope that the Confederate Forces will give chase to De Lorges and Luxemburgh I am very confident that Boileau and Racine will be forced to submit to you Judge therefore if I who very much love my Country and who so much esteem you must not with a great deal of Impatience expect to hear from you Bushy-Health Ian. 1693 4. I am Sir Your most humble Servant To Mr. Dryden Dear Sir YOU may see already by this Presumptuous greeting that Encouragement gives as much Assurance to Friendship as it imparts to Love You may see too that a Friend may sometimes proceed to acknowledge Affection by the very same Degrees by which a Lover declares his Passion This last-at first confesses Esteem yet owns no Passion but Admiration But as soon as he is Animated by one kind Expression his Look his Style and his very Soul are altered But as Sovereign Beauties know very well that he who confesses he Esteems and Admires them implies that he Loves them or is

have or take good sense in the lieu of it If you are not in a Condition to Delight us we will be contented to be instructed we will make your Instruction nourish our Vanity so turn even that to Delight Nay there is something Noble in right Reason and consequently something Delightful Truth is so divinely Beautiful that it must please Eternally but falshood is base and must shock all generous Minds and every Equivocal is but ambiguous Falshood that is the Pittiful'st the Bafest of Falshoods To Walter Moyle Esq Dear Sir THô you are already indebted a Letter to me yet I think fit to give you credit for another thô perhaps you may little desire to run into Debt this way But it is for two Reasons that I give you the trouble of this For in the first place I am taking a turn for a little time into the Countrey and I design that the Prevention of this should make some amends for the Delay of my next In the Second place I have made some provision of Scandal which I am willing to make use of before it grows stale upon my hands Just after I writ my last I thre● my self into a Detach'd Party which march'd from Wills to Namur with the same Design that the Volunteers went to Brest to keep out of the Fray and be Spectators of the Action However before they were come to Blows I went amongst the Tents and had some discourse with Major-General R whom I found to be Father to Mr. Bays his Parthenope For the Major-General is a very Honest Fellow who sells Ale by the Town Wall We had the Satisfaction to see that the Town was taken and the whole Siege was carried on as Sieges generally are with a great deal more Noise than Mischief On Monday last which was the Second of September I travell'd into the City where I had the Satisfaction to see two very ridiculous Sights The First was a Bawd carted for an action which had some relation to that memorable Day For she was convicted of being an Accomplice in setting Fire to an Ancient and Venerable Pile of the City that is she was found Guilty of being instrumental in the Clapping an Alderman I stood in a Bookseller's Shop to see her pass which Bookseller was packing up some Scoundrel Authors to send them away to the Plantations These Authors are Criminals which being se●enc'd to be burnt here have at last found Grace and got off with Transportation You remember the terrible News that we heard at P which as it sprung from a ridiculous Occasion that is my Lady Mayoresses Gossipping has had a Comical Consequence For the Common-Council have made an Order by which my Lady Mayoress is dispens'd during the Wars from seeing those Children born in the City which are got in the Suburbs that is from being present at one of their Wive's Labours But 't is time to return to the Fair. Last Night I took a turn in the Cloisters where I was entertain'd with a great many Dialogues between Vizour and Vallancy Wig upon which I leave you to be Judge whether my Eyes or my Ears were the better Entertain'd of the two For I heard a great deal of Unintelligible Language address'd to a great many Invisible Faces As if because the Women had resolv'd not to be Seen the Men had determin'd not to be Understood and had in revenge Eclips'd the Light of their Understanding by Fustian as the others had obscur'd the Lustre of their Eyes by Velvet Formerly the Ladies made use of White and Red to atract but within these Thirty Years black has succeeded and the Devil is found more tempting in his proper Colour I have neither time nor place for any more You shall have the rest by the first Opportunity Yours c. To Mr. Congreve Dear Sir I Have now read over the Fox in which thô I admire the strength of Ben. Iohnson's Judgment yet I did not find it so accurate as I expected For first the very thing upon which the whole Plot turns and that is the Discovery which Mosca makes to Bonario seems to me to be very unreasonable For I can see no Reason why he should make that Discovery which introduces Bonorio into his Masters House For the Reason which the Poet makes Mosca give in the Ninth Scene of the third Act appears to be a very Absurd one Secondly Corbaccio the Father of Bonario is expos'd for his Deafness a Personal defect which is contrary to the end of Comedy Instruction For Personal Defects cannot be amended and the exposing such can never Divert any but half-witted Men. It cannot fail to bring a thinking Man to reflect upon the Misery of Human Nature and into what he may fall himself without any fault of his own Thirdly the play has two Characters which have nothing to do with the design of it which are to be look'd upon as Excrescencies Lastly the Character of Volpone is Inconsistent with it self Volpone is like Catiline alieni appetens sui profusus but that is only a double in his Nature and not an Inconsistence The Inconsistence of the Character appears in this that Volpone in the fifth Act behaves himself like a Giddy Coxcombe in the Conduct of that very Affair which he manag'd so Craftily in the first four In which the Poet offends first against that Fam'd rule which Horace gives for the Characters Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constet And Secondly against Nature upon which all the rules are grounded For so strange an Alteration in so little a time is not in Nature unless it happens by the Accident of some violent passion which is not the case here Volpone on the sudden behaves himself without common Discretion in the Conduct of that very Affair which he had manag'd with so much Dexterity for the space of three Years together For why does he disguise himself or why does he repose the last Confidence in Mosca Why does he cause it to be given out that he 's Dead Why only to Plague his Bubbles To Plague them for what Why only for having been his Bubbles So that here is the greatest alteration in the World in the space of twenty-four hours without any apparent cause The design of Volpone is to Cheat he has carried on a Cheat for three years together with Cunning and with Success And yet he on a sudden in cold blood does a thing which he cannot but know must Endanger the ruining all I am Dear Sir Your most Humble Servant To Mr. Congreve Dear Sir I will not augment the Trouble which I give you by making an Apology for not giving it you sooner Thô I am heartily sorry that I kept such a trifle as the inclos'd and a trifle writ Extempore long enough to make you expect a labour'd Letter But because in the Inclos'd I have spoken particularly of Ben. Iohnson's Fox I desire to say three or four words of