Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	answer_v	great_a	king_n	1,075	5	3.7673	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41556	Some observations on the fables of Æsop as commented upon by Sir Roger L'Estrange, kt. Yet not on all, for some need not any addition or review, and there be many of them which are coincident as to the individual scope, I mean the same moral instruction, which is couched in them. Illustrated with several pertinent stories of antient and modern history. By a divine of the Church of Scotland.	Gordon, James, 1640?-1714.	1700 (1700)	Wing G1284; ESTC R215162	66,798	60

Valentinian II. Thus We find at last the Mysterie of the purple Dream unriddled and to conclude if Constantius had considered and believed that Maxime of an old Philosopher That it 's simply impossible for any Man to Kill his Successor He would not in all probability have endeavoured by such inhumane Means to interrupt the current of that stream which may easily over-flow the greatest but cannot be stopped by any FAB CX Page 103. Here He might have taken occasion to narrate that story of the Golden Tripos which some fishermen haled to land in their Net instead of a fish in the Time of the seven wise men of Greece which being successively refused by them all it was at last dedicated to the Priestess of Apollo at Delphi to be set upon that Chasma of the earth from whence they had their Oracular Evaporations FAB CXIII Page 106. It was an usual expression of Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Truth thereof is verified by the far greatest part of the World who are mightily afraid of Death especially voluptuous Persons who make their Bellies their Gods are most unwilling to have that sensual Idol torn from them when they are in full possession of all its endearing Circumstances O Death saith Syracides How bitter is thy Remembrance to him who is sitting at Ease in his own house and enjoyes the World at Will But it 's much more admirable to find a Man that 's surrounded with Misery to be unwilling to go to that Place where the weary be at Rest Yet I my self knew one who was as miserable as any man in this World can be supposed to be for he was in the further side of LXXX and besides the usual Infirmities of a decrepit Age He was most pitifully tormented with Nephritical pains yea with such frequent and violent Fits of the Gravel that He hath been heard crying at a great Distance as for his external Condition in the World He was a most indigent Beggar who would undoubtedly have starved many a Time if charitable Neighbours had not succoured Him I did visit Him on his Death-Bed and well knowing all his deplorable Circumstances I doubted not in the least but that He was very glad of the Approach of Death to rescue Him out of the Jaws of extreme misery and having demanded the same of him I heard Him with great Admiration say That if it were the Will of God he could be content to live yet a while longer for all his misery which I could not possibly impute to any other Principle than the Natural Horror of Death and that more Spiritual one of a bad Conscience Yet I judge the Conclusion of the Commentator too general as to all those who improve the lawfull means in order to their Recovery as if they were most unwilling to die who call for Physicians Apothecaries and Surgeons He fancies them to resemble for all the World Lewis XI of France who had such an infinit Dread of Death that if We believe Philip de Comines there was nothing that sounded so terribly to his evil Conscience as the very mention of that Fatal word But he should have considered that they Sin against Nature who spurn at the Means when they are in a Capacity to use them it being a true Maxime of the Casuists That the means are ours but the event is Gods for I have known some good Christians that were so weary of the Fable of this World as Epiphanius usually said and had so little Kindness for this natural Life yea were so desirous To be dissolved and to be with Christ that if their Consciences had not commanded them to use the Means they would have rather chosen to have dyed more than once if it had been possible than to have endured the Fatigue of medicinal Applications which minds Me of the famous Consul Marius who being both pained and deformed in his legs with that Distemper that Physicians term Varices He having to all outward Appearance suffered most patiently the Lanceing and Cutting of one of them when the Surgeon addressed to the other He told Him that these Incisions and Amputations were not worth the while and since Death was the worst of it He would choose rather to die than undergo so much Trouble again Yea more than so if all true Christians were not convinced that the Lord of Life hath fixed Us here away as a Sentinel at a post who must not remove without his Captains Order I am fully persuaded that some of them for any Dread they have of Death would not be shy to imitate that Roman Senator who being informed that the monster of Nature named Nero had determined to put Him to a tormenting death He resolved to anticipat the Tyrant's Malice by starving Himself to death and having intirely abstained from all Kind of Food the space of five or six Days one of his Friends came and told Him that he was misinformed For the Emperour had no bad Design upon Him therefore subjoined he all your Friends are resolved to come and sup with you this Night and we will make a merry Night of it for your escapeing so great a Misfortune He answered that his Friends should be allways welcome to him but when they were assembled all their Oratory could not persuade Him to take one Morsel of Bread nor one Dram of Wine tho' some of them urged him with that Aphorism of Hippocrates Famem Vini Potus solvit and for His Pertinacy he gave them this Reason That He was now within the Confines of Death and had already a full Vieu of that King of Terrors and since He knew infallibly that He behooved once to pay that last Debt to Nature He would not be at the pains again to begin his passage thro' that dark Trance of Death but hoped within 2 or 3 Days to grapple with his Adversary tho' He knew before hand what the Event would be even to be laid flat upon the Ground by his invincible Enemy FAB CXV Page 103. They who are curious may find many other pertinent little Stories to this purpose in Plutarch his Treatise of Brutes having some Use of Reason whose general Topic is very plausible it may appear says He to be the general Sentiment of Mankind in calling Dogs Horse c. mad which undoubtedly in Man imports the Privation of the Use of Reason FAB CXVI Page 108. In my weak Judgement this Fable militats as much if not more against the unhappiness of Successive as of Elective Kingdoms it being very rare to find Electors so infatuated as to make choise of an Infant of a Female of a deformed Creature of a mere Simpleton who is deform'd both in body and mind or of a notorious Coward or finaly of one that is odicus in the Eyes of the World for brutish Sensuality and Excess Germany once stumbled upon such a disastrous Election When Wenceslaus K. of Bohemia was chosen their Emperour to the mighty Prejudice of the Empire

both in the Election and by his male Administration For His Father Charles IV. counteracted to his own Golden BULL in bribeing the Electors so palpably to make choise of such a Calf to be their Caesar but such monstrous Births are very seldom seen at Francfort in Germany or Cracow in Poland as for hereditary Kingdoms People must be content to receave what the Hand of Nature reacheth to them whether it be bountifull or hydebound and that without Remedy unless they serve a Breve of Idiotrie against their Prince when he becomes another Nebuchad●…ezar so that they are constrain'd to give Him an Administrator or Protector as it fared with Charles VI. of France or if He be an incorrigible Fool to turn Him off as was done in this present Age to one of the Kings of Portugal FAB CXVIII Page 110. They have infallibly the more generous Spirits who glory in being The Sons of their own right Arm as the Spaniards phrase it for that sober Acknowledgement of their own base Original embosomes this Insinuation allways in it that they owe their Rise either in Church or State rather to their own Vertue then to the Gifts of Fortune Thus Sixtus V. as smart a Pope as ever had the Honour to sit in that Chair of S. Peter usually vaunted that he was Oriundus Domo illustri alluding to his Fathers house which was so poor a Cottage that the Roof of it was not totalie covered Likewise one Willegese who was Arch-Bishop of Mentz and one of the Prince Electors caused paint Cart Wheels on all the walls of his Palace to mind Him that his father had been but a poor Cart-Wright and who hath not heard of Agathocles K. of Sicily tho' otherwise a most cruel Tyrant but in one thing he was generous for whereas he might have been served in Go'd and Silver Vessels he would use none himself but earthen ones to mind him said he of his original because his Father had been but a poor Potter and in his younger Days he had practised that Trade himself but there was another Potter's Son of far greater Vertue than Aga●…ocles and that was the gallant Eumenes who was not ashamed to own his original even then when He was opposeing with great Courage and Conduct that great K. of Asia Antigonus who was another of the Captains of Alexander the Great FAB CXXI Page 113. Why may not a Beast lust after a Woman as well as a Woman after a Beast For not to speak of the Golden Ass of Apuleius the common Story of Pasipha●… wife to King Minos with her beloved Bull is sufficient evidence that wee may beleeve the same was literaly practicable Martial that obscene latine poet and of a kin it seems to the greek Anacreon hath an Epigram to this same purpose Iun●…am Pasiphae c. for I will not honour it with a repetition yet there he plainly tells us that he saw this brutish pageantrie reacted before the beastly Emperour Domitian in the Amphi●…eatre at Rome And that Love serves to mollify most cruel natures may appear from Polyphemus his wooing of Galataea if wee may beleeve the amorous poet Ovid or Knoles his turkish historie who tels us that Mahomet the great was softned by the fair Irene almost to the degree of Eff●…minacie but after a 1●… month his fiercenes returned and that butcherlie Tyger with his own hand cut off her Head In fine the most admirable Influence I read of this passion was the transforming as it were of a Brute into a Man I mean the eldest son of a Roman Senatour who was so stupid from his Infancie that he was accounted by all that knew him but a two legged beast so that His father being ashamed to have him seen in the City confined him to a country house and the fields thereabout it being his good fortune to espy a verie beautifull young Lady who with some of her attenders was lying sleeping in a Wood this beautiful object which he still gazed upon till she awaked was so far from Inhauncing his stupidity lyke a Gorgons head that it may be said this sight put instantly a new Spirit into that most simple youth for from that day forward he so speedily increased in knowledge virtue that within a short time he was accounted one of the greatest Wits Gallants yea the greatest Virtuoso in all Rome so that all who knew him judged Him most worthy of the greatest Beauty in the world and the reader needs not doubt but that she who had wrought such a Wonderful happy alteration upon him with all Her friends were very glad of the honour of such an alliance FAB CXXIV Page 116. He might here have instanced that of Medaea in the Tragoedy who when she was about to murder her own Children because her husband Iason was ready to marrie Creusa daughter to the King of Corinth the poet introduceth her speaking thus against that most unnatural design Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor FAB CXXVIII Page 119. A parallel Deportment to this honest Carpenter did happen at Rome not long agoe which is most worthy of the recording and noticeing A good Cardinall lived there who was verie famous for his Charitable deeds in the time of a great dearth a poor Widow resorted to him and made her moan that for diverse years by gone she and her daughter had lived honestly upon their domestical Vertue without being burthensome to any but now said she there is such scarcity of all things necessarie for Humane life that wee have enough adoe to hold in our lives by our handie work so that the Chamber-Rent is unpayed and the Lands-Lord is threatning to cast me out but subjoyned she that which anguisheth my spirit most of all Me feares meer penury shall make my daughter run into a brothel-House the Cardinal demanded what the Chamber mail amounted to she answered 5. Crowns he gave her a precept to his Chamberlain who lived in the City to give her the Mony for upon the production of the Cardinal's precepts he sitted his accounts at the years end the Chamberlain told down 50. Crowns to the poor widow she told him he was mistaken for she sought but 5. O! said the Chamberlain here is the express Order of my Master which I dare not disobey neither said she dare I disobey my Conscience for I sought no more from his Eminence and I know he appointed me to get no more therefore I will have no more well subjoyned the Chamberlain I find few supplicants of your Kidney but since everie Man is the best Interpreter of his own orders let Us go both to the Cardinal that we may hear himself when the mater was thus represented to him the good Cardinall declared that he designed no more when he signed that order but only the litle summ the Widow had sought but when he saw the cypher added to the fifth figure either said he some extraordinarie providence hath conducted my hand

all others both in the composition and application of his Druggs for as an Ignorant or Cheating Apothecarie may commit a great ●…rrour in the first Concoction so the attenders may be guilty of great mistakes in the application especialy in the matter of Catharties and Phlebotomy for I have known some weak Patients purged to Death by a double or tripl●… Dose above that which should have been given as also some rash 〈◊〉 to send their patients out of the world by drawing too much of their bl●…od in it for example in the beginning of an Hectick Feaver when the vigou●… of nature is no wayes decayed its fit to evacuat so much Blood as may sensibly abate their preter-natural Heat and Drought but if ane inconsiderable Surgeon draw no less than is usually due in a Pleurisy He will hurrie the Patient the more speedily to his Grave In fine since there be some specificks the due proportion thereof is confined to some few Graines let the Doctor trust no other hand with the Scales than his own for I knew an ignorant 〈◊〉 who gave such a prodigious quantity of La●… to a poor frantick Woman as might have killed an Horse and would undoubtedly have caused ●…he Patient in lieu of 4 dayes to sleep to the sounding of the last Tru●…pet unless that drugg had been found to be verie old and corrupt in the Apothecaries pot whereby it had lost much of the natural Vertue of a Paregoric FAB CCXI. Page 182. This Vultur is a lively Emblem of a Ly●… ●… 〈◊〉 a ●…olyphemus and of the old inhabitants of Tauriea Chersones●…s all which were ●…o inhuman as to murder their guests a good man who is naturally apt to beleeve protestations semblable practices of kindness cred●…lity b●…ing the great unperfection of honest hearts is no doubt brought into a great 〈◊〉 as our Author hath well observed when suspicions of the dishonesty of his friend are suggested to him Yet great soules have judged it inconsistent with true generosity to distrust their old friends and it framed well with some of them Thus Alexander the great as Quintus Curtius informes at large being advertised by his eldest captain Parmenio that His principall Physician had been bribed by Darius Codomannus with a verie great sum of money to poyson his royall Master the first time he gave him any Physicke yet Alexander took the medicinall potion with the one hand and gave his Physitian the said line with the other to read and in the mean time drunk the Potion to the bottom such was the confidence of this royall patient neither did his trustee disapoint him a parallel to this great confidence wee find long afterwards in the Emperour Trajan who being informed by some that his old friend a Roman senatour had a designe upon his life he went the next day to the senatours house privately without any of his Guards and told him that he was come to supp with him but before supper said the Emperour to his friend I must make use of your bath and of your barber and having come home verie late He called for those informers now said he you may perceive that you are all guilty of a caluminous accusation for if my old friend had any design upon my li●…e he had never a better opportunity than was afforded him this day for by his Slaves He might have smothered mee in the bath by his barber He might have cut my throat or by his Cook he might have poysoned me so that I having returned safe and sound ye may perceive the falshood of your information But the famous Dion who was the principall actor in dr●…ving D●…onysins the younger from his Tyrannical nest at Syracuse ruined himself with his too great confidence in Calippus the Athenian whom he trusted above all the world and being informed by his nearest relations and that again and again that Calippus had a design upon his li●…e yet he still answered them that he would rather choose to dye a thousand deaths than to distrust his old friends he was I confess the more inveigled by the manie tears and oaths of Calippus to persevere in his former trust and good opinion of his friend yet notwithstanding of these reiterated protestations that old treacherous villain when he found oportunity dispatched that brave and good man in hopes to obtain the Principality of Syracuse to himself but i●… this He was not only disappointed but shortly afterwards justly killed with that same dagger where with Dion had received his mortal wound as is reported by Plutarch in the Historie of His life FAB CCXIII. CCXIV. Page 184. The Crow thinks Her own Issue fairest is an old proverb which the Commentator doth well extend not only to the Fruit of the Body but also to the productions of the Brain it being verie observable that all the pretenders to those faculties which depend mostly on the imagination such as Po●…sy Musick and the Art of Limning or painting be they never so great Bunglers at them they imagine themselves to be excellent so did Dionysi●…s the old Tyrant of Syracuse as to Poesy tho' he was the worst at it that ever did it for who knowes not the bantering of that rigid Philosopher Carrie me back again to the Quarries how soon He heard Him read but a line or two of a new Poem he had made and beleeved it to be much better than the former which the Philosopher had derided and I dare say that pitifull Scots Rymer Mr. Zachary Boyd thought Himself as good at the Poetical Trade as ever his Countryman Buchanan was deemed to be tho' the one was as good as could be found in any nation if wee beleeve the famous Ios. Scaliger and without breach either of Truth or Charity it may be said that a worse could not be found any where than was the other For all Nero's divine voice as his parasites termed it with his incomparable dexterity in handling the Lute as his Sycophants also soothed Him and His Quantus Artifex pere●… which were the last words He spoke in this world yet if he Had been as poor as some Fidlers are I dare say He would have earned less dayly wages than some of them have done and it s verie possible that Ves●…asian afterwards Emperour would have heard them more placidly than He did His Lord and Master in the Amphit●…eatre at Rome for it had allmost cost Him His Life because that Divine Voice forsooth had not preserved Him from sleeping A S●…ythian Prince was justly deemed a beastly Dun●… for preferring the Neig●…ing of his own Horse to the ravishing Music of the famous Musician ●…smenius but if Nero had been the Competitor it s verie probable He should neither have been termed a brute nor a blockhead Paulus Iovius tells us that it was one of the great Divertisements of Leo X●… to call for the worst of Poets of Musicians and Painters that were to be found in all Italy and to make them believe