Selected quad for the lemma: day_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
day_n	clock_n	fair_a	noon_n	5,815	5	12.8080	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30645	The Roman the conversation of the Romans and Mæcenas, in three excellent discourses / written in French by Monsieur de Balsac ; translated into English.	Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez, seigneur de, 1597-1654.	1652 (1652)	Wing B617; ESTC R33129	34,832	164

should Maintain the Empire or Restore Liberty I somewhat suspect the History of that Councel and I can scarce perswade my selfe that the gallant spirits of those times were so much the Emperours confidents that he should communicate with them affairs of that nature I am satisfied to believe that they intended his vertuous pleasures without aspiring to a more important direction and that hee caused the Palace gates to bee open for them when they were shut to Supplicants and Petitioners But when in farre distant Countries nay in the midst of the Palaces clouds did rise wch obscur'd the Calm I spake of It was then Madam when the Muses were no lesse necessary then they had formerly been agreeable 'T was then they did him service helped Livia to uphold her husband who began already to stoop with cares and under affairs During this diseased and impatient season they were only imploied to seek pleasures divertisements for him They did strive onely to charm his paines with their songs they studied to appease and set at rest that impaatient part of his soul which incessantly watched tormented it self To estrange his fancy only from the debauches of his daughter and from the defeat of his Legions To take away the sight of troublesome subjects by the interposition of pleasing ones Now Madam as it was no smal matter of merit for human Men sometimes to make Augustus sleep somtimes to chear him the good Goddesses thereby justified themselves from the calumny of the Barbarians who accused them as useless to the Republick as fit to have no rank in the world This good Prince suffering them also to extend the too large violence of his thoughts by taking some intervals of release in those spectacles which they took care to provide for him at the same time they did divers good acts For besides that they avowed themselves to be his They protected the innocent against the Licence of the old soldiers the cruelty of the civil victory He got pratlers which use to be heard in all ages and honouring them with familiarity he rendred them triburary to his glory But chiefly Madam he followed the Councel of Nature which will have all who work rest which entertains its durance by moderation threatens violence with an end I know well that this Soveraign Understanding which was given to Princes for the Conduct of human things is incapable of being tired and would agitate continually could it be alone But being ingaged with the body and having Organs which are extreamly frail and delicate it must manage them for their benefit and in spight of it self fit it self to the necessities of a society with which it is ingaged Princes cannot always be Angels divorced from sense and enjoy the purity of a simple beeing They must sometimes be Men mixt with Matter and Subject to the changes of things composed There must Madam after the Tempests of Affairs and the anxious Objects of the ills they are to combat be a care taken to finde them pleasures Ports to divert and refresh their Minds and attracting Perspectives which may untire and rejoice their eyes They are the needs of human life how rich and sufficient so ever it may otherwise bee of it selfe Labour would weaken the strongest Mindes had they not their helps and stayes to support them Melancholy would suffocate them did they not thus respire To speak properly they are the voluptuousness of reason and the delights of the understanding And he who hath discovered all the Truths under Heaven and was ignorant of nothing which could be known without Revelation made so particular an esteem of it in the Fourth Book of his Ethicks that he was not afraid to say That sport and divertisement were no lesse necessary to life then rest and nourishment It s true he makes a difference as well as we of playes and divertisements Hee is not a Councellor of all kinds of debauches neither will hee have wise men pass their time as the Vulgar do Hee hath discovered a Mean approved by reason betwixt an ill humour and a buffoone in which the soul dilates itself by a moderate motion and doth not enervate it self by a violent dissolution And of this Mean Madam he hath made a Moral vertue wch respects the good of company in pursuit of two others which he proposeth to us in the same Chapter for the same end The first of these three Vertues is a certaine sweetness facility of Manners which can accommodate it self without servility and approves not all that is said without choice neither by distaste doth hee disapprove it The second is a cleare freedome and a custome to speak the Truth even in indifferent things in as far a degree estranged from vain ostentation and an affected restraint I intimated before what the third was and their three vertuous habits according to the opinion of Aristotle rule all the commerce of words and extend themselves to all the entertainements which Men have of one another whether wee hold pleasing or distastfull disputes whether true or false whether sad or joyful So that Madam without the first of these three Vertues the Assemblies of Men would bee but Troops of Enemies mixt together who would scratch fly in one anothers faces or Circles of Lovers who would adore their owne defects esteem their wrinkles fair Without the second they would but be the schools of Dissemblers who would scarce tell us what of the clock it were or that it were day at Noon so feareful are they of mistaking Or Theaters for Captains who say more then they know or then they have done or then indeed could have been done In fine without the Third of which we have spoken the Assemblies of Men being too sad or too merry would seem either as the Convoyes of afflicted persons and the representation of a publique grief or spectacles of naked persons and the image of those licentious Feasts which durst not appear before Cato The Mean betwixt these two is a Vertue of a truth neither so splendent nor so high as Wisdom and Magnanimity yet it s a Vertue allowed by the Philosophers even by the Philosophy of Cato And should we banish it out of our Morals the communication wee have with one another would have bin but dry and thorny Our Discourse would rather have been a toile and a labour of the Tongue then an ease and a discharge of the heart and Society if we had permission onely to dispute and to contradict would trouble us far more then Solitariness wherein wee at least may laugh out of memory and rejoice in our own thoughts I cannot assure you Madam that the Romans were acquainted with so praise-worthy a quality in the Infancy of the Republick and although one of their Poets reports well of King Numa and of the Nymph of Egeria the Conferences which they had together passing without witness they could speak of them but by conjecture These