Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	age_n	life_n	old_a	5,148	5	5.6715	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02322	Nevv epistles of Mounsieur de Balzac. Translated out of French into English, by Sr. Richard Baker Knight. Being the second and third volumes; Correspondence. English. Selections	Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez, seigneur de, 1597-1654.; Marshall, William, fl. 1617-1650, engraver.; Baker, Richard, Sir, 1568-1645.	1638 (1638)	STC 12454; ESTC S103515	233,613	520

of your friendship I am infinitely beholding to you and make account to reape no small benefit by it for having a soule as you have full of vertue you make me a Present that is invaluable to bring mee in to so worthy a possession and whilest you offer me ●…eenesse and fi●…elity you offer me the two greatest rarities this age affords I beleeve you speake more seriously in Prose than you doe in Verse and that you are content to be a Poet but have no meaning to be a Sophister I likewise entreare you to beleeve that the least word I speake is accompanied with a Religion which I never violate and that there is nothing more true than the promise I here seale you most perfectly to be Sir Your c. At Balzac 6. Octob. 1635. To Mounsieur Souchote LETTER XXII SIR by your reckoning you have written to me thrice for nothing when indeede I knew not of your first Letters but by your last if I had received them you may be sure I should have answered them for though I be not very regular in observing compliments yet I am not so negligent of necessary duties that I should commit so many faults together How profound soever my slumber be yet I awake presently assoone as I am once stirred and specially when it is by so deare a name and by so pleasing a voyce as yours is Never therefore require me to give it in charge to some other to let you heare from me such a request would be an offence to our friendshippe an action fitter for a Tyrant than a Citizen it were to take me for the great Mogull who speakes to none but by an Interpreter I like not this savage statelinesse it is farre from me to use so little civilitie towards men of your worth when it is I that am beholding to you I pray let it not be my groome that shall thanke you for it I will take the paines my selfe to assure you I am wholly yours and whereas I did not bid you farewell at my going from Pari●… you must not take it for an argument of slighting your person but for an effect of the libertie I presume of and of the renouncing I have vowed to all vaine ceremonies They that are my friends give me this leave and you are too well acquainted with the soliditie of things to ground your judgement upon apparances neither doe I thinke you will require them of me who am as bad a courtier as I truely am Sir Your c. At Balzac 20. Iuly 1630. To Mounsieur Tissandier LETTER XXIII SIR you shall receive by this bearer the rest of the workes of or to speake more properly the continuation of his Follies They are now as publike as those Du grand preuost diuin que vous auez visite autres fois dans les fame uses petites maisons Hee useth me still with the same pride and insolencie he was wont and you would thinke that hee were at the toppe of the Empyriall heaven and I at the bottome of hell so farre he takes himselfe to be above mee but I doubt not ere long his pride shall be abated and his insolencie mortified He shall shortly be made to see that he is not so great a man as he thinkes himselfe and if hee have in him but one sparke of naturall justice hee shall confesse he hath triumphed without cause and must be faine to give up all the glory he hath gotten unlawfully Turno tempus erit magno cum optaverit 〈◊〉 Intactum Pallanta Mounsieur de is still your perfect friend and he never writes to me but hee speakes of you He is at this present at Venice where he meditates quietly the agitation of all the world besides and where he enjoyes the honest pleasures which Italy affoords to speculative Philosophers But Sir what meane you by speaking of your teares and of the request you make unto me Doe you not mocke mee when you pray me to comfort you for the death of your Grandfather who had lived to see so many Families so many Sects so many Nations both to be borne and die a man as old as Here●… it selfe the League was younger than hee which when the Cardinall of Lorraine first conceived hee caused a Booke to be printed wherein hee advertized France of the conception of this Monster You weepe therefore for the losses of another age it is Anchyses or Laertes you weepe for at least it is for a man who did but suffer life and was in a continuall combate with death He should long agoe have bin one of the Church Triumphant and therefore you ought to have beene prepared for either the losse or the gaine that you have made Mounsieur 〈◊〉 was not of your humour I send you one of his Letters where you shall see hee was as much troubled to comfort himselfe for the life of two Grandmothers that would not die as hee was for the death of a brother that died too soone I commend your good nature but I like not your Lamentations which should indeede do him you sorrow for great wrong if they should raise him againe to be in the state in which you lost him It may suffice to tell you that he is much happier than I for he sleepes and I wake and he hath no more commerce with men unreasonable and inhumane and that are but Wolfes to one another You know I have cause enough to speake thus but out of this number I except certaine choise persons and particularly your selfe whom I know to be vertuous and whose I am Sir Most humble c. At Paris 3. Decem 1628. The Letter of Peter Bembo to Hercules Strotius AVias ambas meas effoetas deplorat as que faeminas jam prope centum annorun mulieres mihifata reliquerunt unicum fratrem meum juvenem ac florentem abstulerunt spem solatiamea Quamobrem quo in ●…rore sim facilè potes existimare Heu me miserum Vale Id. Ian. 1504. Venetijs Another to him LETTER XXIV SIR if it had not beene for the indisposition of my body I had not stayed so many dayes from thanking you for your many courtesies but for these two moneths I have not stirred from my bed so cruelly handled with the Sciatica that it hath taken from me all the functions of my spirit and made mee utterly uncapeable of any cenversation otherwise you may be sure I should not voluntarily have deprived my selfe of the greatest contentment I can have when I have not your companie and that I should not have received three Letters from you without making you three Answers Now that I have gotten some quiet moments from the violence of my torture and that my paine is turned into lamenesse I cannot chuse but take you in hand and tell you in the first place that you are an ungratefull man to leave our Muses and follow some of their sisters that are neither so faire nor so worthy of your affection I

intended to corrupt the memory of so excellent an odour as shee hathleft behinde her of whose great worthinesse I have in other places sayd so much that I should but shame my selfe to say any otherwise and indeed the termes I used were free and not injurious and such as if they wound a little they tickle delight much more I neither spake disgracefully of the dignitie of her royall birth nor gave her any odious or uncivill names as some others have done whom I condemne extreamly for it yet Sir I will yeeld to confesse that I have said too much and though my saying too much should have attractives to charm me and were as deare to me as any part of my selfe yet seeing it is distastfull to you I will for your sake cut it cleane off and never looke for further reasons to induce me to it I can deny nothing to my friends and therefore make no doubt of the power you have over me and of my testifying upon this occasion without further opening my eyes that I am Sir Your c. At Balzac 4. Jan. 1632. To Monsieur de Borstell LETTER XIII SIR I am so farre from seeking to justifie my negligence that I will not goe about so much as to excuse it nothing but my being dead can be a valuable reason why I waited not upon you to offer you my service all other impediments would prove too light to have kept mee here but such is your graciousnesse that it is impossible to fall foule with you such your indulgence that you remit a fault before I can confesse it you give me no leisure to aske you at the very first you oblige me to thanke you and I have received my pardon here at home which I never looked to obtaine but at Oradour and that with long solliciting I have not yet seene the Ambassatrix who hath done me the favour to bring it to me and I cannot imagine shee should be surprized with that despaire as your Letter represents herein Alclones affliction in respect of hers would be but meane and those women whose teares Antiquitie hath hallowed did but hate their husbands in comparison of her I know not whether you doe her a pleasure to raise her sorrow to so high a pitch for after this you speake of shee shall never be allowed to lift up her eyes and you give her a reputation whereof shee is not worthy if shee leave but one haire upon her head I much distast your exaggerations and cannot thinke shee will beare you out in the report you make of her miserable estate if it were such as you make it it would be capable of no remedie Epictetus and Seneca would be too meane Physitions to take her in hand yet I meane not to contradict you I thinke when death her husband sea'de Angelica with her Fates displeasde Lookt pale i' th face as Alablaster Charging the guiltlesse starres with blame In the th'hard language Rage could frame When it is growne the Reasons Master Yet the glory of her spirit makes me beleeve withall that this sad humour was but a Fit and continued not long and that the same day upon the tempest there followed a calme A man shall meet with some women of such spirits that neither time nor Philosophie can worke upon them and some others againe that prevent the worke of time Philosophie by their owne naturall constitution As there are some fleshes so hard to heale that no Balme can cure the pricke but of a pinne so againe there are some bodies so well cōposed that their wounds are healed with plaine Spring water and they close and grow together of themselves I assure my selfe our faire Lady is of this perfect temper and that she wouldbe no example to make widowes condemned for curling their locks or for wearing their mourning gowns edged with greene You should alledge unto her the Princesse Leonina so highly esteemed of the Court of Spaine and the prime ornament of this last age Knowing that her husbands quirry was come to relate unto her the particulars of his death hearing that his Secretary was to come the morrow after shee sent the quirry word to forbeare comming to see her till the Secretary were come that so shee might not be obliged to shed teares twice There is no vertue now adayes so common as constancy nor any thing so superfluous as the custome of comforting All the Steele of Biscay and all the poyson of Thessalie might well enough be trusted in the hands of the mourners of our time without doing any hurt I scarce know a man that would not be glad to out-live not onely his friends parents but even the age he lives in his very Country and rather than die would willingly stay in the world himselfe alone Speake therefore no more of keeping Angelica here by force who in my opinion is not of herselfe unwilling and not having lost the King of Sweden may therefore the more easily repayre her losse I would to God Sir I could be no sadder than shee is and that I could forget a person who is at this present the torment of my spirit as he hath heretofore been the delight of my eyes but melancholick men doe not so easily let goe the hold of their passions and the good remedies you have sent to comfort mee for his death I approve them all but apply none of them yet I give you a thousands marks though six moneths after they were due and though I say not often yet I say it most truly that you shall never take care of any man that is more than my selfe Sir Your c. At Balzac 30. Aprill 1633. To Madam LETTER XIIII MAdam seeing I could not come to see you at your departure as I was bound to doe I doe not thinke I shall doe you any wrong to send you a better companion than that I promised you I meane the Booke I now send you whereof you have heard so much talke and which you meant to have carried with you into Perigord to be your comforter for the losse of Paris It is in truth worthy of the good opinion you have of it and of the impatience with which I am a witnesse you have expected it And if wagers have been layd upon Queenes great bellies and assurance given they should be brought abed of a sonne why should I wonder that you have given before hand your approbation of a thing that deserves the approbation of all the world It will certainly bring you out of tast with the Present I gave you when you desired me to looke you out some of my Compositions In it you shall finde that that will shorten he longest dayes of this season That that will keepe you from tediousnesse when you are alone That that will make you thanke me for my absence For to say true all visits will be unseasonable to you when you set your selfe to the Recreation of so sweet a reading and

Starres These heads that now have neither skinne nor flesh nor hayre These carkasses and dry bones have beene in their time the divinities and wonders of the world and was heretofore called the Dutchesse of Valentinois the Dutchesse of Beaufort the Marquis of Besides there may happen diseases which will doe old ages worke before hand and are oftentimes more gastly than death it selfe Wee are frighted sometimes to see the spoyle and ruines of Faces upon which the foote of sicknesse hath troaden and there is nothing in which wee may more observe the lamentable markes of the inconstancie of humane things From hence I conclude that beautie being a thing so frayle and tender subject to so many accidents and so hard to keepe it is fit wee should seeke after another beautie that is more firme and permament that can better withstand corruption and better defend it selfe against the force of time Above all it is not fit that women should be proud of a qualitie that is infamous for the losses and wracks of many poore Consciences and which as innocent and chast as it can be will yet be a cause to rayse in others a thousand fowle desires and a thousand unhallowed and wicked thoughts Say my Niece hath some thing in her that is pleasing some thing that is fayre and beautifull as her friends conceive yet shee ought alwayes to be afraid of such a good that is so dangerous for doing hurt to others I set before her eyes the sad Picture of that which shee shall be hereafter to the end shee may not grow proud of that which shee is now There is no hurt in meditating a little upon this poynt But allow her the libertie wee even now tooke from her yet withall put her alwayes in minde that of the foure beauties I have shewed her in my Tasso there is but one of them that will be a fit example for her to follow Shee must leave Armida and Erminia for the Gallants of the Court Clorinda is for the valourous men of Gascoigne and Perigord but shee that I propose for her Patterne is Sophronia And if shee have not courage enough to say to the Tyrant as shee sayd It is I that am the Delinquent you looke for let her at least have the other conditions that are necessary to the being her follower and imitate her in them This fayre Saint made profession of modestie and neglected her beautie shee was alwayes eyther hidden under a veile or shut up in her Chamber and all the world might suspect her to be fayre but there was scarce any at all that knew it but her mother Shee had no designe to entrappe any mans libertie and therefore layd not her snares in their way nor went to Church to see and to be seene My deare sister I cannot choose but take upon me here to be a reformer of corrupt manners and make my complaint to you of a Custome which as well as many other naughtie things the Court hath cast upon us What reason is there in the world that women should enter into holy places of purpose to draw upon them the view and attention of the Company as much as to say to trouble and disturbe the whole devotion of a Towne and to doe as bad or worse as those buyers and sellers did whom Christ whipped out of the Temple By this meanes good actions become evill and Pietie comes to have no better odour before the Altaus than Perfumes that are mustie and corrupted Women now adayes are bound to be seene to be at Church and this very desire of being seene there is the ordinary prophanation of the place where they are seene And in truth seeing this place is particularly called the House of God what is it but to vilifie God even in the highest degree to come and offend at his owne doores and as it were to his face It is even as great an Impudency as that of the first Angells who sinned in Paradise Yet herein certainly the Italian women are more pardonable than the French for they indeed have no other breathing time of their unfortunate libertie being at all other times kept up as slaves and prisoners but in France where women are not denyed the company and visits of honest men they can have nothing to say in justification of this incontinency of their eyes and of this unsufferable vanitie to seeke to part stakes with God in mens vowes and to share with him in his publike Adoration You little thought this morning to heare a Preacher and I as little thought to be one but as you see the zeale of Gods House hath brought mee to it and finding my selfe at leisure I was desirous to bestow part of it upon you The Text was given mee yesterday by the company that was here where my Nieces beautie was so much extolled that sending you Newes which are to her so glorious I thought fit to send her withall a cooling to keepe her glorying in some temper and so my deare Sister I take my leave and am with all my soule Your c. At Bolzac 3. May. 1635. Another to her LETTER LV. MY dearest sister having both of us but one passion it makes us alwayes talking of one thing My Neece is the subject of all our Letters as she is the object of all our cares For my owne part I see not a good or a bad example which I make not use of for her instruction and endevour to imploy it to her profit You remember a woman the other day who values nothing likes of nothing excuses nothing and let her be in the best most pleasing company that may be yet she is sureto put them all into dumpes and melancholy You can come on no side of her but she pricks and bites all her coasts are craggie and rockie And it was not without cause my brother sayd that if the man you wot of had married her there would certainly have nothing come of that marriage but Teeth and Nayles It is impossible to live in peace with such a savadge chastitie I make no more reckoning of it than of that of the Furies whom the ancient Poets call virgines and wonder not that women of this humour love no man seeing they hate the whole world This sad and sullen poyson taking up all the roome in their soules leaves no place at all for other passions that are sweet and pleasing They flye pleasures rather by having their mouth out of taste than by having their judgement in perfection and are so continually fretting that they have no leasure at any time to be merrie As long as they bee chaste they thinke they may lawfully bee discourteous and scratch men so they doe not kisse them They have a conceit that by wanting one vice they have presently all vertues and that for a little good fame they gaine to their husbands they may keepe them under yoake and affront all mankinde It is true the losse of a womans