Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	earl_n	john_n	robert_n	47,013	5	9.2711	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50604	A moral essay, preferring solitude to publick employment, and all it's appanages, such as fame, command, riches, pleasures, conversation, &c.	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1665 (1665)	Wing M171; ESTC R19367	40,123	121

A MORAL ESSAY PREFERRING SOLITUDE TO PUBLICK EMPLOYMENT And all it's Appanages such as Fame Command Riches Pleasures Conversation c. 2 King 4. 13. Wouldest thou be spoken for to the King or to the Captain of the host And she answered I dwell among mine own people EDINBVRH Printed for Robert Brown and are to be sold at his Shop at the Sign of the Sun on the North-side of the Street over against the Cross 1665. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN EARL of CRAVVFORD c. My LORD SEing man can glory in nothing but in that he is GOD's Image certainly that must be his most glorious state wherein that Image is most clearly seen and this is solitude wherein his composed soul like the smooth face of the Ocean represents with much advantage this glorious image which the unequal risings of stormy and aspireing waves of ambition do exceedingly conceal The heathen Poet Lucretius describes the great perfections of the Deity to consist in that it is Privata dolore omni privatapericlis Ipsa suis pollens opibus And Cicero upon this score confesses that the Philosophers life was of all others most preferable because of all others it approached nearest to that of the gods This my Lord invited me to write this Discourse in it's favours which because I intended as a bundle of rods for whipping such as were fondly ambitious I did therefore strip naked of these leaves and flourishes of Eloquence which by making them more pleasant could not but make them less sharp And if any tax me for sending this Book to publick view from that solitude which both it and I so much commend my answer is That either it will convince these who read it and then it will gratifie that solitude which it hath left or else it will meet with censure and disdain and then it 's fate will demonstrate how dangerous it is to gaud abroad to press which is another of my great designs I intend not really to depreciat such by this Discourse as injoy Honours and Employment that design lyes as far out of my road as it is rais'd above my power but I intend by it to congratulate with such as either undervalue them out of inclination or have lost them by accident and to discipline such unquiet humours as like powder do in blowing up themselves destroy all that is above them or resists their violent ascent wherein as I obliege Philosophers by complementing the object of their complacency So I gratifie States-men by reclaiming such as are the ordinary object of their fears Neither should any thing in this Discourse which is picquant against those Courtiers who have been rather great then good displease such as are both good and great more then it should displease a Gentleman of noble shapes and features to see a Painter draw another man though of the same species with himself under all the disadvantages that can be trac'd by a deforming Pencile That I should choose your Lordship for my Patron is no act of virtue because your condition as it stands circumstantiat made you almost the only person who deserv'd it at all and altogether the person who deserv'd it most for being the best Pattern for solitary persons ye were the person who deserv'd most to be the Patron of solitude it self especially having oblieged it so far as to prefer it to that rival against which it now disputes for precedency and prefer'd it after it 's adverse party had been your old acquaintance and had offer'd to bribe you for your suffrage with a purse heavy enough to have weighed down a light spirit Fear not my Lord the want of fame which is the only thing that solitude is thought to want For as the heathens resembled it to a Maid so it hath this of a coy Maid likewise that it courts most these who seem most to undervalue it and rarely any person admires his own servants so much as it doth these who are stranger to it And great men have this loss that their superiors will not admire them as being less then themselves their equals will not because they hate them nor their inferiours because they envy them and do but too oft imagine that they are opprest for feeding their luxury That famous rod which wrought so many miracles for others openly in Aegypt did never it self flourish till it was laid up in the tabernacle according to their opinion who will have both these to have been one and the same and the Diamond ceases not to enjoy a greater lustre though hid in the darkest corner then these pleasing blossoms do which the weakest breath of a storm will command down from the highest branch upon which they pearch Fame then shall transmit your name to posterity as the Iews did their embalm'd bodies which they preserv'd perfumed and odoriferous in secret and retired Grotts and Sepulchres whereas it will preserve that of more publick persons only as the Aegyptians did theirs whom by exposing to the open Sun they kept as mummie but so black and parcht as that it had been better they had return'd to their former ashes But though fame should not thus gratifie you yet virtue who hath so few deserving followers now that it cannot but pile up pyramids of favours upon such as are will recommend you to succeeding ages both to let see that she wants not her Trophees even in this dotage of the world wherein she is not so deform'd by age as not to have charmes strong enough to conquer such as deserve her favour and to engage others by this act of gratitude to a dependence upon her And amongst her admirers you as one of her Minions shall have still all deference paid you by Your Lordships most humble Servant SOLITUDE prefer'd to publick EMPLOYMENT Generous CELADOR I Know that your advancement was to you but as the being thrown up is to solide bodies from which state they cannot be so properly said to fall as to run with inclination to that beloved centre and level from which they were at first rais'd I know you made no other use of that height which makes others giddie then to take from off it's loftiest tops a full prospect of all these vanities which so much ravish mean spirits And your publick deportment being thus so exact a picture of true Virtue I hope your retirement will be the shadowing of that noble draught In the confidence of this I send you this Elogy of solitude not as Physicians send Pills with praises to their averse Patients for as it were below your Stoicisme to need such So it is above my skill to be able to administrat the meanest remedy to so well a complexion'd soul as yours But I praise it to you as we use to praise a Mistris to her enamoured Gallant whose intimacy with her though it far exceeds the acquaintance of the praiser yet it breeds not in her enamorato an unwillingness to hear what he already knows complacency