Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	die_v	fear_v	life_n	8,855	5	5.0708	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28927	Characters of the virtues & vices of the age, or, Moral reflections, maxims, and thoughts upon men and manners translated from the most refined French wits ... and extracted from the most celebrated English writers ... : digested alphabetically under proper titles / by A. Boyer, Gent.	Boyer, Abel, 1667-1729.	1695 (1695)	Wing B3912; ESTC R19552	97,677	222

its Gastly Circumstances The Wisest and Bravest Men are they that take the fairest and most honourable Pretences to keep their View from it But every body that knows it as it really is ●inds it to be a thing full of Horror The Constancy of Philosophers was nothing else but the Necessity of Dying they thought when there was no Remedy but a Man must go it was best to go with a good Grace And since they were not able to make their Lives Eternal they would stick at nothing to make their Names so and secure all that from the Wreck which was capable of being secur'd Let us put the best Face upon the Matter we can content our selves with not speaking all we think and hope more from a happy Constitution than all the feeble Reasonings that gull us with a fancy that we can approach it without concern The Glory of Dying gallantly the Hope of being Lamented when we are gone the desire of leaving a good Name behind us the Assurance of being set free from the Miseries of the present Life and of depending no longer upon a ●ickle and humourfom Fortune are Remedies not altogether to be rejected though they be far from being Sovereign They help no more to put us in Heart than a poor Hedge in an Engagement contributes to encourage the Soldiers that are to march near where the Enemy is firing it appears a good Shelter at a distance but proves a very thin defence at close view We do vainly flatter our selves to think that Death will be the same when near as we fancy it to be when remote and that our Reasonings which in Truth are Weakness it self will prove of so harden'd a Temper as to hold out proof and not yield to the severest of all Tryals Besides it shews we are but little acquainted with Self-Love when we imagine that will do us any Service toward the looking upon that very thing as a Trifle which must unavoidably cause its utter Ruin and Reason from which we expect so many Supplies is then too weak to perswade us what we wish to be true Nay Reason it self generally betrays us upon this occasion and instead of animating us with a Contempt of Death gives us a more lively Representation of all its Terror and Gastliness All it is able to do in our behalf is only to advise us to turn our Heads another way and divert the Thought by fixing our Eyes upon some other Objects Cato and Brutus chose noble Ones A Lackey not long ago satisfied himself with dancing upon the Scaffold whither he was brought to be broke upon the Wheel And thus though the Motives be different they produce still the same Effects So true it is that after all the disproportion between Great Men and the Vulgar People of both sorts do often meet Death with the same Face and Disposition But still with this difference that in the Contempt of Death which Great Men express the desire and love of Honour is the thing that keeps Death from their sight and in the Vulgar 't is Ignorance and Stupidity that leaves them at liberty to think upon something else and keeps them from seeing the greatness of the Evil they are to suffer V. Every thing in this Life is Accidental even our Birth that brings us into it Death is the only thing we can be sure of and yet we behave our selves just as if all the rest were certain and Death alone accidental * VI. We are apt to pick Quarrels with the World for every little Foolery or every trivial Cross But our Tongues run quite to another Tune when we come once to parting with it in earnest * VII Nothing but the Conscience of a virtuous Life can make Death easie to us Wherefore there 's no trusting to a Death-bed Repentance When Men come to that last Extremity once by Langor Pain or Sickness and to lye Agonizing betwixt Heaven and Hell under the stroke either of a Divine Judgment or of Humane Frailty they are not commonly so sensible of their Wickedness or so effectually touch'd with the remorse of a true Repentance as they are distracted with the Terrors of Death and the dark Visionary Apprehensions of what 's to come People in that Condition do but discharge themselves of burdensom Reflections as they do of the Cargo of a Ship at Sea that has sprung a Leak Every thing is done in a Hurry and Men only part with their Sins in the one Case as they do with their Goods in the other to fish them up again so soon as the Storm is over Grace must be very strong in these Conflicts wholly to vanquish the Weaknesses of distressed Nature That certainly is none of the Time to make choice of for the great Work of reconciling our selves to Heaven when we are divided and confounded betwixt an Anguish of Body and Mind And the Man is worse than Mad that ventures his Salvation upon that desperate Issue VIII There is not any thing that Men are so prodigal and at the same time so fond of as their Lives IX Death happens but once but the Sense of it renews in all the Moments of our Lives and the fear we have of it is ten times worse than the submitting to it X. That part of Death which is certain is much alleviated by that which is uncertain XI We hope to grow Old and yet we fear Old Age that is to say we love Life and decline Death XII Nature generally makes a long Sickness intermediate betwixt Life and Death with design it seems to make Death it self a kind of Release both to him that Dyes and those that survive him XIII That Death which prevents a crazy Old Age comes in better time than that which terminates it XIV There are but three great Events for us Men Birth Life and Death We are not sensible of our Birth we suffer in Dying and forget to live XV. Most Men spend the first part of their Lives in rendring the other miserable * XVI Men fear Death as Children fear to go in the Dark and as that natural Fear is encreased in Children with Tales so is the other Certainly the Stoicks bestowed too much cost upon Death and by their great Preparations made it appear more fearful It is as natural to die as to be born and to a little Infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other * XVII It is observable that there is no Passion in the Mind of Man but it Masters the Fear of Death And therefore Death is no such terrible Enemy when a Man has so many Friends about him that can gain him the Victory Revenge Triumphs over Death Love ●lights it Honour aspires to it Grief flies to it Fear procures it Nay we read that Pity it self which is the Tenderest of all Affections has provok'd many to die out of meer Compassion Nay Seneca adds Niceness and Satiety A Man says he would die though he were neither Valiant nor

●lies a Crown and vanishes out of sight as soon as they come to be invested with Power If these first Years be not made use of to give them good Advice and Instruction there will be no retrieving it in the following part of their Lives For all then goes off in meer juggle and disguise XXIII There wants nothing more to make a Prince compleatly happy than the Sweetness of a private Life If any thing can make him amends for so great a Loss it must be the Charms of Friendship and Fidelity of true Friends XXIV One of the greatest Misfortunes that can attend a Prince is that he has often Secrets that lye heavy upon his Soul and which it is not safe for him to disclose His Happiness is to find a true bosom Friend on whom he may throw off his Burden XXV Nothing is so much for a Princes Credit as the Modesty of his Favourites XXVI What a happy Condition is that which gives a Man so frequent Opportunities to do good to so many Thousands What a dangerous Post is that which exposes a Man to do hurt to so many Millions * XXVIII All Precepts concerning Kings are fummarily comprehended in these two Remember that thou art a Man and that thou art instead of God The one bridles their Power and the other their Will Laughing Raillery Bantering I. NOthing is more rare than to see a Man either Laugh or Weep to the purpose II. The Enjoyments which a Plentiful Fortune affords and the Calm and Smoothness of Prosperity furnish Princes and Great Men with so much Mirth that they can Laugh at a Monkey a Dwarf and oftentimes at an Cold Jest but Men of Inferiour Fortunes seldom Laugh but where there is occasion III. All the World is plagu'd with Cold Iesters we tread every where upon those Insects A good Iester is a thing very uncommon and even those that are born such find it a very hard Task to make good their Character a considerable Time And besides he that makes other People Laugh seldom makes himself to be Esteem'd IV. To Laugh at Witty Men is the Privilege of Blockheads They are in the World what your Scurrilous Iesters are at Court * V. No Men are more unwilling to bear a Jest than those who are forward to break it * VI. The Wounding of a Friend for the sake of a jest is an Intemperance and Immorality not to be endur'd * VII Men ought to find the difference betwixt Saltness and Bitterness for he that has a Satyrical Vein as he makes others afraid of his Wit so he had need be afraid of others Mcmory * VIII It is commonly the Fate of Apes and Buffoons that while they think to make sport with others they serve only in the Conclusion for a Laughing-stock themselves * IX The true Raillery should be a Defence for good and virtuous Works and should only design the Derision of extravagant and the Disgrace of vile and dishonourable Things This kind of Wit ought to have the nature of Salt to which it is usually compar'd which preserves and keeps sweet the good and sound Parts of all Bodies and only frets dries up and destroys those Humours which putrify and corrupt * X. There 's not one Man of a Thousand that understands the just the safe warrantable decent and precise Limits of that which we call Bantering or Fooling but it is either too Course too Rude too Churlish too Bitter too much on 't too Pedantick too Fine out of Measure or out of Season Now the least Error or Mistake in the Management of this Humour lays People open to great Censure and Reproach It is not every Man's Talent to know when and how to cast out a pleasant Word with such a regard to Modesty and Respect as not to Transgress the true and fair Allowances of Wit good Nature and good Breeding The Skill and Faculty of Governing this Freedom within the Terms of Sobriety and Diseretion goes a great way in the Character of an agreeable Conversation for that which we call Raillery in this Sense is the very Sawce of Civil Entertainment and without some such Tincture of Urbanity even in Matters the most serious the good Humour flattens for want of Refreshment and Relief But there is a Medium yet betwixt All-Fool and All-Philosopher I mean a proper and discreet Mixture that in some sort partakes of both and renders Wisdom it self the more grateful and effectual * XI 'T is the Nature and Practice of Jesters and Buffoons to be Insolent towards those that will bear it and as Slavish to others that are more than their Match Life Death I. ONE cannot look either the Sun or Death in the Face II. Very few People are acquainted with Death it is generally submitted to rather out of Insensibility and Custom than Resolution and all Men yield to Death only because they cannot help it III. We often see those that are led to Execution affect a Constancy and Contempt of Death which in truth is nothing else but the fear of looking it in the Face So that this pretended Bravery and Contempt may be said to do their Mind the same good Office that the Head-band or Night-cap does their Eyes IV. Nothing can be more counterseit and deceitful than the Contempt of Death That Contempt of it I mean which the Heathens pretended to out of their natural Reason and Constancy without the Hopes of a better Life There is a great deal of difference between Dying with Bravery and Resolution and slighting Death The former is frequent enough but I look upon the other to be never real and sincere and yet Philosophers have us'd all the Arguments that the Subject can bear to perswade us that Death is no Evil and Men of very inferiour Characters as well as Hero's have furnisht us with a great many Eminent Examples in Confirmation of that Opinion Nevertheless I do still question whether any Thinking Man ever gave his assent to it nay the trouble they are at to perswade others and themselves plainly shews that this was no such easie Undertaking A Man indeed may have a great many Reasons to be out of conceit with Life but he can have none to despise Death Even those who voluntarily lay violent hands upon themselves do not look upon it as an inconsiderable matter but are startled at it and decline it as much as others if it approach them in any other shape but that of their own chusing The Unevenness of Courage observable in a World of Brave Men has no other Bortom than the various Influence of Death which works more powerfully upon their Fancy upon some Occasions and at some Times than it does at others Hence it is that after having slighted what they did not know they fear it now when they come to be better acquainted with it If a Man would perswade himself that it is not the greatest of Evils he must decline looking it in the Face and considering all