Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	word_n	world_n	wretched_a	70	3	8.4241	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56890	Fortune in her wits, or, The hour of all men written in Spanish by the most ingenious Don Francisco de Quivedo Villegas ... ; translated into English by Capt. John Stevens.; Fortuna con seso. English	Quevedo, Francisco de, 1580-1645.; Stevens, John, d. 1726.	1697 (1697)	Wing Q188; ESTC R5377	77,088	150

through the Room their Submissions were so profound as if they would have kiss'd the Ground he trod on He casting a Glance like a Shame-faced Girl press'd through saying Excuse me Gentlemen I am now in haste The Nobleman call'd for his Desk and sate to Dispatch Business when upon a false alarm thinking themselves summon'd to appear one of the Candidates cries It is I another I come and others Here I am crouding themselves to death against the Door The poor Lord understanding what a Peal of Petitions attended him knew not which way to turn himself He silently cursed himself saying It was one of the greatest Blessings in the World to have to give provided there were none to ask and that Favours that they might not be a plague to him that bestows them ought to be freely offered and never sued for The Dunners impatient of delay wasted inwardly considering there was but one Employment and the Candidates were many They Calculated the Account Arithmetically dividing one betwixt 32 and then says they What comes to every Mans share Then would they have substracted 32 from one but that could not be therefore every Man supposed himself that one and applied it cannot be to all the rest The Lord considered he could please but one and must disoblige 31 however to be rid of them he resolved they should be admitted and in order to it put on a stern Countenance and looked like a Statue that he might appear with more Majesty In they rushed in a Croud and he perceiving they would all Tongue-pad him at once said There is but one Employment and you are a Number I would gladly bestow the place upon one and stisfie you all As he had dropt the last Word the Hour commenced and the Lord bestowing the Employment upon one entailed the Reversion of it upon them all one after another World without end The wretched Presumptive Heirs began to wish one another dead praying for Plurisies Asthma's Consumptions Plagues Apoplexes Fluxes sudden Deaths and all manner of Disasters Scarce Were two Minutes past since the Entail when every Man thought his Predecessor had liv'd to the Age of Methusalem and though the Tenth Man computed his turn could not come till 500 years after yet every Man was pleased to wait the death of his Predecessor Only the 31th finding by his reckoning that his turn fell out exactly with the end of the World and after the coming of Antichrist said My Possession and the general Conflagration hit exactly together I shall make a fine Business of my Employment when I am burnt the day of Judgment who will oblige the Dead to pay me my Wages For my part I wish the 30th Successor a long Life for when the Employment comes to him the World will be at the last gasp The Lord left them striving to outlive and destroy one another and went himself away in a passion to see them protracting their Ages beyond Dooms-day and even coping with Eternity He that had carried the Employment stood amazed to consider what a long succession of Heirs he had got and at last slunk away resolving to eat light Suppers and prevent taking Cold. The rest looked upon one another as so many mutual Plagues and reciprocally cursing their Lives each fancied Diseases in the other and added to the number of his years every Successor threatning his Forerunner with Death giving him over as a gone Man and wishing him in the Hands of Physicians which is the same as to be delivered up to the Hangman Mumpers that borrow never to pay A sort of Men that borrow after the manner of the day that is past never to return again who snap at a Purse as a Spider does at a Fly that 's entangled in her Web lie tumbling in Bed till the Evening for want of Rags to cover their Nakedness Among them they had laid out Half a Crown they had Mumped in Wafers Ink Pens and Paper all which they had consumed in begging Letters all to the same effect expressing how urgent the Occasion was their Reputation lying at stake and even their Life with Assurances of a speedy Return and Professions of Eternal Acknowledgment However in case they should not meet with Money they concluded with the Ne plus Ultra of impudent Beggary desiring in case there was no ready Cash they would be pleased to send them something of value to pawn which should be most carefully secured By way of Postscript they begged Pardon for the Boldness protesting they would not be so free with any other Person They had drawn about an Hundred of these Notes to be dispersed in all the Corners of the Town whither they were conveyed by one of the Fraternity a notable Spunger that had a Tongue well hung and with his grave Beard and long Cloak not a little resembled a well travelled Mountebank The Herd of Letter Beggars remained computing how much Money the Messenger would bring and a cursed noise there was about the Sum. Nor did it stop here for they wrangled about the laying it out and having given one another the Lye at last they leaped out of their Beds with such Fragments of Shirts that there was no occasion to take them up to discover their Lower Parts In came their Mumping Post with an Air that spoke no Relief both his Hands were at liberty and his Arms open which foreboded Emptiness All that appeared was a great Bundle of Notes They all stood amazed seeing their Contrivance had ended in empty Answers and in a doleful Tone said What have we got No Money replied the poor Scoundrel you may divert your selves with Reading since you have no occasion of Telling They began to open the Notes The first was to this Effect I was never so much concerned at any thing in all my Life as my not being at present in a condition to serve you in a matter of so little value He might have served me quoth the Reader and have had more cause to be concerned The Second Note Sir had I received yours yesterday I could have obliged you and been proud of the Occasion A Curse of yesterday says he that is the daily Plague of all Mumpers The Third Note It is such a miserable time O Damned Almanack-maker cries the Shark we ask for Money and you tell us what Weather it is The Fourth Note Sir your want cannot be so grievons to you as to me it is that I cannot relieve you Who the Devil told you so exclaims the poor Wretch dost thou pretend to Divination thou Miser and Prophesy when you ought to give No more reading they all cried and making a Hellish Charm they added It is now night to make up what has been expended let us gnaw the Wafers of the Letters for our Supper and sell these and two other Parcels of Notes we have by us to the Confectioner who will give at least four Royals for them to Paper up Comfits wrap Sugar and lay

Monarchies the Greek and Latin Languages still gloriously survive and in them in spight of Death do still flourish their Heroick Actions Virtues and Names being rescued from the Oblivion of the Grave by those Studies which enriched their Minds and made their Nations cease to be Barbarous The second Proposition is That the Laws and Customs of the Romans be received so far forth as they are not directly opposite to our Law to the end that Policy may be advanced Disorders suppressed Virtue Rewarded Vice punished and the Distribution of Justice may be so established that neither Affection Malice nor Bribery may have place but a sure and universal Method be settled in all parts The third is That for our greater Benefit in Fight our crooked Cimiters be changed for Spanish Tucks because they are more handy either to defend or offend the great circular motion of cutting being saved by thrusting by which means whenever we have come to Handy-blows with the Spaniards we have sustained unspeakable Loss that Nation exceeding all others in handling their Rapier and besides the Swords are lighter of carriage and easier to weild The fourth That to preserve Health and recover it when impaired the use of Wine be by all means allowed because moderately taken it is the best Vehicle of Nutriment and most Efficacious Medicine It is also a rich Fund to increase the Grand Signior's and his Subjects Revenues there being several Liquors produced by the Grape which create a considerable Trade Nay it is more powerful and effectual than Opium to raise the Spirits and excite the Blood to bold Undertakings Neither ought the prohibition in our Law which has been already partly dispensed with to be any hindrance for a proper interpretation to our purpose may be found For the putting all we have proposed in execution we offer to furnish Schemes and Directors who shall carry it on without any Charge or Trouble to the Publick and are assured it will add much to the grandeur and glory of all the Great Emperor of Constantinople 's Dominions Scarce had he uttered the last Word when Sinan Bassa a Renegado started up foaming with rage and said If all the Devils in Hell had conspired against the Turkish Monarchy they could not have invented four such cursed Plagues as have been proposed by this Morisco Dog who among Christians was an ill Mahometan and would be an ill Christian among the Turks These Fellows would have rebelled in Spain and here they would destroy us The reason for expelling them there was not greater than this it will be convenient we revenge our selves on those who sent them among us by returning them back Don John of Austria had not more destructive Designs against our Power when at Lepanto opening the Veins of so many Janisaries he caused the Fish to swim in Blood and made a new Red Sea not inferior to the old The Persian Green Turbant doth not more maliciously aim at the overthrow of our Empire Nor did D. Peter Giron Duke of Ossuna and Viceroy of Naples and Sicily with his Fleets and Land Forces and Terrour of his Name more fiercely endeavour to obliterate the Memory of our Half Moons whose light he often sullied when our Vessels scarce thought themselves secure of him at Pera and Constantinople than thou infernal Dog with those four Proportions hast laboured to do Helhound Monarchies are upheld by the same Arts that erect them They have always been raised by Souldiers and always corrupted by Pendants Kings hold their Dominions by the Sword not by their Books Armies gain and defend them not Universities Victories make them great and formidable not Arguments Battles bestow Kingdoms and Crowns Learning Caps and Degrees Whenever a State begins to assign Rewards for Learning Dignities are conferred on Drones Craft is honoured Subtlely exalted and Favour Rewarded and then the Conqueror depends on the Doctor the Soldier on the Scholar and the Sword on the Pen. The ignorance of the People is the greatest security of Princes Learning which instructs makes them mutinous Learned Subjects rather conspire than obey rather examine their Soveraign than respect him No sooner they understand but they despise him No sooner can they know what liberty is than they desire it They can judge whether he that Reigns is worthy to Rule and then begin to Reign over the Prince Learning is the cause that Peace is sought after because it stands in need of it and Peace that is sought after draws on the most dangerous War No War is so destructive as that he endures who seems to covet Peace The latter sues with Words and Embassies and the former makes its advantage of the fear that appears in the Intreaties When a Nation affects Scholars and Writers Gooso Quils place of Swords and Muskets Ink in writing is more meritorious than Blood spilt a Sheet of Paper signed is of more force than Armour proof against Shot and the Hand of a Coward by virtue of the Pen extracts from the Inkhorn Honours Revenues Titles and Grandeur Many Vile Wretches wear the Black Robe Many raise Estates by their Writings and many great Men are desended from Scriblers Rome when beginning in a small circumference scarce big enough to sow two Bushels of Corn it grew to a vast Commonwealth used neither Doctors nor Books but Souldiers and Weapons All there was Violence and no Study they ravish't the Women they wanted subdued what was near and aimed at what was farther off No sooner did Cicero Brutus Hortensius and Caesar introduce Harangues and Declarations than they began Seditions and conspiring destroyed one another and others themselves and even the Commonwealth The Emperors and the Empire were destroyed and overthrow by the ambition of the Orators Even among Birds only those suffer imprisonment in Cages which talk and sing and the more perfectly they do it the closer they are kept Then the Schools were made the Magazines against Arms Orations sanctified Crimes and condemned Virtue and whilst the Tongue reigned Triumphs were subject to the power of Words The Greeks suffered by the same itch of Learning they were proud of their Academies which vied with their Armies and their Philosophers were a plague to their Generals Wit became the Judger of Valour and they grew rich in Books and poor in Triumphs You say their Heroes still live in their famous Authors and their Language still survives tho their Monarchy be extinct The same happens to a Dagger which wounds a Man which continues when the Man is gone and yet that is no satisfaction to the dead Man It were better the Monarchy survived tho dumb and without a Language than that the Language should last without a Monarchy Greece and Rome are become Ecchoes forming in the hollow emptiness of their Majesty not whole sounds but the very extremities of absent Words Those very Authors that extolled them could allot themselves but so short a Life at the pleasure of the Reader that in some it reaches only

the Understanding in others goes not beyond Curiosity Spain whose People in danger were always prodigal of Life covetous of Death and impatient of Age when with unparallelled Resolution it raised its Head out of ruin grew to a mighty Flame from scattered Embers and became a prodigy from a Skeleton rather attended to furnish Matter for Writing than to Write and to deserve Praises than to Compose them Their Drums and Trumpets spoke for them and all their Speeches were repeated Huzza's before Battle They furnished the World with Subject of Admiration under Viriatus and Sertorious they gained glorious Victories for Hannibal they obliged Caesar who till then every where fought for Honour to fight for his Life and they exceeded Valour and Resolution it self at Numantia Yet of these and many other their Brave Actions they writ nothing all was Recorded by the Romans Their Valour made use of Foreign Pens they thought it enough for them to Act and for the Latines to Write As long as they knew not how to be Historians they deserved t●●m Artillery was not long since invented to take off Lives before secured by distance to overthrow the strongest Walls and to bestow Victories by aim not by true Courage but presently after was Printing invented in opposition to Cannon it is Metal against Metal Ink against Powder and Letters against Bullets Wet Powder takes no effect there is no doubt but it is moistned by the Ink that sends down Orders to provide and dispose it There is no doubt but there is a scarcity of Lead to make Bullets ever since it is consumed in casting of Letters But it was Battles that gave us Empire Souldiers gained the Victories and the Victories the Rewards which ought always to be bestowed on those who always made us Triumph They who called Letters and Arms Sisters knew nothing of their Pedegree for no Families are less of Kin than Saying and Doing The Steel is never joined to the Quill but to cut it but the Quill with those very Wounds it receives from the Steel revenges it self Most contemptible Morisco it is our desire that among our Adversaries there be many Learned and among us many Victorious for it is Victory over our Enemies that we covet and not their Practices The second thing you propose is to receive the Laws of the Romans which if once you had compassed you had ruined all Our whole Empire would run into confusion betwixt Plaintiffs and Defendants and Inferior and Superior Judges and the People would be all taken up in the Employments of Councellors Sollicitors Atturneys Clerks Apparitors Serjeants and other Pependants of Courts Thus War which now makes choice of Men will be forced to take up with the Refuse of the Embroilers of the Nation and there will be more Suits not because there will be more occasion but because there will be more Laws Following out own Methods we enjoy as much Peace as we stand in need of and as much War as we please to Make with our Neighbours The Laws in themselves are just and good but where there are Lawyers they are dull and senseless This cannot be denied since the Lawyers themselves own it as often as they impose what sense they please upon the Law supposing of it self it has none Every Judge affirms he is an interpreter of the Law and by giving a meaning to it supposes it has none I for my part am a Renegado and was a Christian and do avouch as an Eye Witness there is no Law eitheir Civil or Rational but what has as many meanings as there are Lawyers Commentators or Judges who give it so many that it proves at last to have none at all When then there is no reason to dispossess a Man of his Estate there never wants a Law which being either strained or ill interpreted is ground enough for a Suit and both the Plaintiff and Defendant are in the end Sufferers Consider now what Two wholesome Propositions have been made by this thankful Morisco The third thing is that we should change our Cimiters for long Swords In this particular as there is no considerable ill cosequence to obstruct so I can find no great advantage to encouraging us to put it in execution The Half Moon is our distinctive Character and that we always brandish in our Cimiters To take up the Fashions and Customs of Enemies is a Ceremony proper to Slaves and a Ga●● for Conquer'd People or at least it is an men or forerunner of both If we are to be permanent let us stick to the old Proverb which says Let that ever be done which was always done for by keeping to it we shall be free from Novelties Let the Christian thrust and the Turk hew and let this Morisco expelled by the former be impaled by the latter As to the fourth and last point which relates to the use of Vineyards and Wine let thirsty Souls agree about it with the Alcoran No small toleration has been given in this case long ago But I must observe that if there be an universal Toleration of Wine and Taverns it will only serve to enhance the price of Water and to make us buy Rain by the Quart My Opinion is therefore weighing what has been proposed that this Cur is a greater Enemy to those that harbour than to those that expelled him All the Assembly heard this Discourse with profound silence The Morisco looked pitiously a cold sweat running down his Forehead Then Hali the Prime Visier who stood next to the Curtain that was before the Grand Signior after consulting his Looks said Christian Slaves what say you to what you have heard They seeing the blindness of that deluded Nation and perceiving they loved their own barbarity and placed their Security in Tyranny and Ignorance abhorring the light of Learning and the Justice of Laws caused a Spanish Gentleman who had been 30 years in slavery to answer for them all which he did in these Words We Spaniards shall not advise you to any thing that is for your good because it would be a piece of Treachery against our Monarch and an Offence against our Religion neither will we deceive you because we do not stand in need of frauds to defend our selves against you therefore we Christians have resolved thus silently to wait our doom The Grand Signior influenced by the Hour and drawing the Curtains before his Throne a thing never before seen with an angry Voice said Let those Christians be set free their generous goodness shall be their Ransom Cloath and furnish them plentifully for their Voyage out of the Estates of the Moriscoes And let that Dog be burnt alive for proposing of Innovations and all that shall follow his Example shall suffer the like pain It is my choice to be called Barbarous Conqueror rather than be Learned and overthrown All our knowledge must be to know how to overcome for an ignorant People is the safety of a Tyrant I command all here present