Statue Lesbia to a Statue whereby they did not so much desire as undergo a change and experiment in themselves the Fables of the Poets finding themselves as it were changed into Trees Stones and Birds it is not our meanest Felicity to feign Discourses Answers and frame Delights to our selves as if we intended to be happy at our own not at the Will of another It pleases us to enjoy an Affection not in vain returning to the Author where there is that of Delight still remaining which is accompted the chiefest in Love that we love our Love reciprocally and like the Sun enjoy the reflexion of our own heat Nor does that other chance of being Belov'd afford less Delight but more of Honour Whence men more extensively court the Affections of others than they expend their own This is without the Ensignes of Magistracy or the Scepter to extend the proper Kingdom of the Gods in the Minds of Men. This shews us vast Felicities and Vertues and causes us rather to suffer than render good Offices Hence are reckoned so many Trophies of thy Vertues as we finde Retainers following thy Triumphal Chariot But when the Contest is who shall render most good Offices when it is a Combat of Kindness not after the fashion of the Court but with a modest shame to submit and out of a fear of less well-doing then is that parity of reciprocal Kindness which Aristotle dignified with the known Title of Friendship though giving no Example Well fare that Equality which Justice with her Sword and her Ballance has been long attempting but Love has easily brought into Custome among Mankinde Sometimes it happens that the distance of Fortunes or Merits separates Friendship Jupiter must descend to Earth and put off his Deity before he can enjoy the Embraces of Mortals Nay the brute Deity must descend below man and work his admittance rather by Contempt than Terrour Semele has sufficiently taught us how great a punishment it is to admit a Deity to her Bed The adoration of great people is only sweet to the ignorant as approaching nearer to Flattery than Charity 'T is our Ambition not our Friendship advises us to this to purchase our selves into the number of Servants rather than of Friends But they are both equal who have captivated each other at the expence of true worth Sometimes we experiment a more fragrant Ambition while humble Masters strive to love themselves and chuse rather to suffer a contempt of Dignity than a decrease of Candor Alexander puts off the Emperour and by Loving looses what he won by Conquest content that Ephestio should reign upon condition he may be a part of his Kingdom He bestows upon Ephestio the Flatteries which he receives from others while he serves Ephestio he seems to enjoy more than another World We all confess that Love is a soothing and restless desire of pleasing them who please us either by chance or through their own vertue or our mistake It little imports either to Life or Friendship where the heat first kindled The Heart moves and throbs never the less for that continually reverberating our breasts and like a double-diligent Importunate either to tire or force to deserve or asswage cherishes Kindnesses with Kindnesses and where there is no place for kinde Offices like one alway rendring something obliges the Inclinations of the other with a countenance of diligent Obsequiousness and strives to please with a fear of displeasing But this he accounts a benefit to have sometimes displeas'd by which means he may either hate or reform his own proceedings For to be most like to this person is to be both good and happy he dives into the most inward Motions of the heart performs commands by conjecture and fulfils them as yet unknown to the Master before the pangs of labouring desire can come to torment him Neither shall he ever satisfie himself though the other has done sufficient whereby it is apparent that he who is the Courter is delighted with those Offices of Kindness not so much to gain favour as out of a desire to serve as if Man were a Slave born by nature for that one Mistress For you must know that there is the same pedigree and original of Loving as of Living Of some certain things there is an order and mutual agreement among themselves either instituted by Nature or voluntarily undertaken of things like or dislike whereby those are conjoyn'd those are disunited and parted asunder But that tye of Blood is the work of chance nor does it shew any merit of Affection as being engrafted in our Breasts we never admit but ignorantly suffer and now so much as it brings of Necessity so much it imposes of Burthen Pardon me therefore if I hold the name of Friends more holy than that of Parents We owe all that to Love which we attribute to our Parents that is to be led by the Errour of easie Piety For out of their mutual Love not out of any Charity to us it happens that we come to receive the benefit of this light Neither does proper Alliance inflame or cherish Domestic Friendship but Familiarity and that same sweet Society in Calamities and reciprocal Kindness in common Miseries I am deceiv'd or Lovers are joyn'd together by a more strict alliance and by a tye so much the straiter by how much Reason is above Nature The force of a mans own Will is greater than that of Consanguinity For every one obeys himself the more stedfastly by how much he does it with more pleasure and submits to his own Laws But both these conspiring together how promptly and placidly does this Affection sway the Minde by a tacite consent confederating our Will with Nature But O thou least of all the Gods though greatest of all the Deities divine Cupid It is beneath thy Merits that the audacious Philosophers and Poets should only feign thee a God However thou hast this proper to a Deity to be unknown and to receive sacred reproaches from men He has also this farther property of a God to lead men by a tacite Influence so that they obey though they feel not his Motions and to draw others against their Wills insomuch that all Affections contrary to it at the beck of his Majesty submit their Services While he is pleased to jeast the lofty hang their drooping heads the brave and stout fear and tremble at the glittering Darts of splendid eyes The Illiterate Heir of a sudden grows eloquent he no longer buys his Love-Songs but grows enraged himself and sings her praise To omit the other Attributes of his Divinity Love is a Circle eternal immense in whom reside those acts of Providence to Govern and Cherish wherein I am the more confirm'd for that Love's Religion strikes an awe upon the very wicked They court in such a manner as if they were performing Divine Service Their Countenances fail they view their Garments and compose themselves to all the habits of Reverence To
then speak a word which covets rather to be the subject of Contemplation than Demonstration and because it keeps its station in the most secret Recesses of the Heart disdains acquaintance with the Tongue A thing which we poor Mortals never learn either from precept or examples but then at length all first began to understand when we had all practised the same thing You would say that Love were not only blind but Tongueless who has made all the joints of our bodies vocal unless the Tongue alone Whence it comes to pass that Lovers more eloquently make use of sighs than words to convey the Intelligence of their secret flames and like Paphian Doves weep enliven'd Epistles by which means they also discourse with their eloquent Fingers without the assistance of a Pen and dialogue in signs with affable Nods missary Smiles and by means of those vocal Messengers of their Desires hear each others mutual Wishes and read each others visible Souls At other times the Rhetorical Tropes of Gesture woe in a mysterious and various Idiome while Pilgrim Glances seeming to be out of their way outwardly renouncing all familiarity privately hold a strict correspondence together Their counterfeited Frowns display an outward displeasure when they are studying all the charms of Friendship in the midst of their Anger At other times their Souls taking reciprocal flights from each others eyes ravish from each other Bridal Kisses at a distance returning in Triumph with the Thefts of Embraces in thought And among all their Triumphs and their Pleasures this they look upon as the chiefest that the business lies hid So frequent a thing it is for Lovers to appear upon the publick Stage and yet beguile the Spectators by disguising the Comedy These Angelic Interlocutors seem indeed to be above all humane Laws and consequently by most certain signs to understand each others Wishes to inspect each others Entrails and to manage their Affections rather by way of Oracle than Discourse while they display in thought a clearer discovery of each others Mindes before the addresses of words or that they know how to deceive and their Desires like Apparitions shew themselves to the eye Such however as by no other Art are to be seen than that which bred them while issuing visibly from the Body they not only appear to the sight but assume the shape and enliven the person whom they designe to discourse As if there were within the same Body a free Intercourse of restless and wandering thoughts that commune with others abroad with no less silence than they observe at home This one Affection that cannot be exprest is ador'd as a Mysterie whose sacred Rites like those of the most antient Deities are like Crimes protected by a modest Shame and warie Silence Love has always its Vail and the Adorers of Venus like Aeneas walk envelop'd in a Cloud and keep themselves secret in the most publick Assemblies of Men. Nay Cupid himself hardly content with one Vail delights to peep out of his Ambushments and to see the hearts he daily wounds beholding all himself unseen Thus Love that compos'd the world kept his Station in Confusion lurking in the antient Darkness of the primitive Chaos Still doth Venus as if she were a Traitor flie the Sun and for fear of being discover'd I know not what Divinity has inclos'd within a Labyrinth not only the Affections of Pasiphaë but the whole Love of all Mankinde or if at any time he chance to be apprehended he appears either like one caught in a Net or else in the shape of a Monster Thus in complaisance to Mortals that love Riddles Love is become a Problem to himself living without Rule and exercising the Affections at his own pleasure while contrary Desires agitate him no less impetuously driven this way and that way by the Ebbs and Flowings of the Passions from whence it may be easie to infer that the Cyprian Queen was born upon the rowling Billows in the midst of contrary Winds Strange Riddles That the same person should both serve and live free should be at his own disposal and at the command of another as it hapned to the Freed-men of the Roman Emperours who govern'd their Lords and Masters under the title of Slaves That this same Love should both live and dye both at the same time and like the Phoenix revive from the Ashes of his own Funeral Pile Mad and malignant Wishes of the same Lover therefore to wish his most beloved Favourite unfortunate only to have the opportunity of being his Comforter Therefore to desire him depriv'd of Friends and bereav'd of Subsistance that he may have the honour of supplying both Therefore to wound that he may be the Author of the Cure That Necessity rather than Love and Merit should enforce the Oblig'd to retaliation Not to know whether to desire the Hatred and Enmity or the Favour and Kindness of his Friend while Hatred and Jealousie are equally mischievous in their undertakings 'T is a piece of Inhumanity to hinder the effects of all other mens Kindness only to engross the Affection singly to himself to remove and implead all his other Rivals as the injurious Authors of his private wrongs but above all things to be solicitously careful lest at any time hereafter he should grow wiser which might render him contemptible with so much delight are Lovers blindly misguided See how an inamour'd breast grows cold and hot reciprocally by fits as it fares with those in high Fevers neither is there any one that loves without perfect indignation Deservedly he curses the pleasing Executioner that burns him in those flames that rob him of himself Yet like a Butter-flie delights to play about those flames and enjoy the happy Author of his Death He seeks himself without himself and lingers to be taken that being a prisoner he may be in a capacity to redeem himself and to be next to himself sticks close to his Possessor It is a difficult thing for him to love as difficult not to love but more difficult than both to enjoy Love So miserably is his afflicted Minde tormented not so much with his own wishes themselves as with the necessary event of what he desires So that if the Heavens prove propitious to favour him with success in his Love he then cries out again for his former miseries and that pleasing torment of sighing and desiring So much more grateful it is to aspire to embraces than to be fetter'd in the Chains Every one more highly esteems the pleasure of desiring than the Desires themselves not likely to be happy in any condition who complains of the event and with reluctance suffers his Sighs and delightful Anxieties to be lost Which is the hard and cruel fate of Lovers that what way soever Fortune favour them they are still adversaries to their Happiness Whence comes it to pass that he flies the sight of her the sight of whom is his most pleasing Nourishment while he thinks it a
were equal to the extent of the Terrestrial Globe love all the World as their native Country But this we do not call Friendship but a certain Benevolence and uncertain Humanity Neither do we blame this or receive it with less candour than what we practise towards Enemies but we would restrain those luxurious and Court-like Affections that pride themselves in number of Salutes and bands of Followers that hunt after these Ensignes as well of Grandeur as Vertue sweating in the crouds of their Retainers But it is the humour of your haughty Ladies and suspected for their Chastity by a dissembled Obsequiousness to lye in wait for the Affections of others merry toward all but kinde onely to one to give nods of distinction sometimes to one sometimes to another to distribute up and down their alluring Looks to scatter and divide their enticing Smiles lastly as it were to swoon away and having caught the prey to withdraw both the bait and the allurement A most wicked sort of Pride to number the herds of Lovers among Female Riches and the Revenues of Beauty But because he cannot endure to love less and more he cannot love whoever is inflam'd to the highest with a genuine fire nor is it enough for him to labour under a disgust of others unless he also loath himself denying the division of his flames as well to himself as to others therefore he freezes within his own proper Sphere and in the midst of those fires wherein he breaths grows stark and benumm'd like the cold Salamander For that his Soul being altogether departed from and forgetful of its self he fears all things in his Friends behalf in regard of himself nothing but only lest he should fail in any part of his duty While he deceives himself he is wise for another and submits himself to Fate or to a better Guardianship the Providence of his Friend Who on the other side alternatively takes care of him fears and provides against Danger He like an assisting Soul appoints him a Minde that he may seem to approach the regiment of Heaven which is govern'd by an Intelligence Because I say whoever adopts himself to another abjures himself and as one deceased delivers himself up to Oblivion and as it is but reason esteems him only dear with whom as youngest born he lives a more lively Life and like a pallid Shade abides and sports about his Body Whoever he were that was the Doctor of Amours he established for an unjust measure of Affections the Love of himself and idly proposed our selves to our selves as Exemplars of Loving How little is every one to himself Who is he not enslav'd to his own Desires or infected with his own Customs that lives less for another than for himself Neither does this Precept spring from our Vices but from our Vertues that we should be assistant and serviceable to others Some Vertues are severe toward the Professour and they serve with us that under others merit generous Stipends That Modesty which dictates reproaches to its self and abhors all sorts of Scarlet but that of a chast and humble Lip obstinately vaunts the Praises of another and translates the Honours due to its self Ambition that toyls under another name meets with the Titles of Candor and Fidelity That Brass and Iron which surrounds the breast only forms man into a shield for others that he may be able to endure the blows which he labours to ward from others No man dies in the defence of himself lest he should dye but to prevent the fate of Parents Children or some other Friend What have I said no man dyes No man lives for his own sake If then so much Gallantry on this side Friendship proceed from bare Vertue and Nature it self certainly Friendship should not impose any other Law upon Good Will but only this Not to know the measure or to prefix other limits than what the Desires of Lovers designe Let no man love who governs his Affection but will not be govern'd who loves cautiously according to rule as if he were about to hate Some one may love naturally no man truely loves who answers his Lover according to proportion and as it were loves by weight Long Veneration keeps me in suspense as a confused Lover that has wasted his Sight with beholding a Divine Form uncertain which part of noble Beauty first to admire Yet has he made such a progress as to admire his own amazement and to give the chief honour to every particular Feature and to assent to all though praising distinct parts and various in their judgments I hear Dionysius defining Love to be a Circle returning from Good through Good to Good again Hence I acknowledge Rings to be not only Pledges but the Hieroglyphicks of Love This Circle seems to be expressed by the perpetual heat of Lovers that whirls round with the Blood like an Orbicular motion such is that Ethereal fire where the immortal flame both feeds and satisfies it self Who loves what he has loved moves Spherically in his own footsteps And he that loves only that he may love revolves to himself and there meets himself and closes the Circle I hear Aristophanes and readily assent who affirms that the main Mystery of Love is to be reduced to the same from whence we were For we see in Natural Motion how all things run back to their first Principles By the Law of Nature we wholly employ the Faculties of our Souls in the service of those from whom we received 'em and by a certain series of Piety and gradation of Affinity we reverence those names of Country Parents God as more dear than our Lives I know not whether I may call a Man-lover blinde and incestuous or provident and holy who is always deeply in love with something of his Original and therefore prosecutes his Parents with a pious flame Neither is he much out of the way who takes for his Parent the person from whom he gains a new lot of Life and renews his Nativity at the noble price of his Piety But you O Thales and you O Empedocles the one leaping into the Water the other into the Fire the one by chance the other advisedly both of ye made too much haste to dissolve not only Philosophy but the Philosophers themselves into their first Principles and to plunge the vital Particles of Souls in their first Elements Yet thus the Errours of Philosophers excuse the Errours of the Affections and while famish'd Souls like famish'd Bodies are nourish'd with those things of which they consist you would swear that the liquid Soul were infus'd into great Drinkers the bloody Soul into Tyrants You would say that sordid people were newly come out of the mud that the barbarous Stoicks were only the Statues of men hewn out of the cold Stone If we suppose that familiar and well-acquainted Souls are sent again into the world not without a divorce from the common Seminary of Souls or the conjoyn'd
of her own Hills But what is greater thou subdu'st the Age to Us And Vicar of the Oracle Like a faithful Priest perform'st what God commanded Teaching men to know themselves Our Language Nurs'd wit increas'd by thee Thou didst form the Country-speech and thy own words together No more we boast our own but Johnson's Eloquence To the end thou mayst be always prais'd in thy own Language Who hast also taught Rome it self more eloquent words Vaunting in the servitude of a forrein Idiome Greece also The Mistriss of the world thou hast adorn'd Now glorying in another than the Attick Dialect Rich in thy self alone thou wer 't able to contemn The Ingenuities of Others And without them wer 't a Compendium of Wit But as that Painter Who strove to give the world an Exemplar equal to the Idea Artfully collected Those Beauties which Nature had here and there dispers'd And forcing the wandring Rivolets of Form into one Ocean Commanded thence another unblemish'd Venus So to the framing a structure of the same nature Thy Poesie was like that Painting Other Authors afforded Materials for thy Wit Thou art added to them as Art and Polishing And if others might be call'd Poets thou Poesie itself Not another Pen but the Author of Authors Long sollicitous Writers teaching at length by thy Self What Genius a Book that would live ought to have How many soever went before Did but serve as Guides in the Road Thou alone the Pillar That Vertue which profits others endammag'd The Owner And thou that hadst more correctedly transcrib'd others Art not to be transcrib'd thy self A Match equal to them gone before To Posterity unequal Perpetual Dictator of the Stage Rob. Waring These Flames of Love Robert Waring offers and consecrates to the Altars and religious Fires This old and worm-eaten Harp of Love he also hangs against the sacred Walls of his poor Habitation NOw Cupid grant me Feathers and Quills from thy own Wings and an Opportunity of Stealing thy Divinity There is a greater Task in hand and a larger Theme of Love the Patron whom I should believe more proper for me to invoke were it not a piece of impious Worship to pretend so great a Person for the occasion of our Sloath. Yet O thou to me more admir'd Divinity than Cupid himself grant me the pardon of this one Crime for it is not an unheard-of Crime of Piety to hang my Harp upon the sacred Walls that will then at length prove grateful when it can sound no more I in imitation of Praxitiles his Art for what is it we Lovers dare not do have sent this idle Piece not so much for the Pencil's as for Pieties sake the Messenger of my Love and as a Pledge for my self Thou shalt not finde here so much of the Painter as of a person that makes his Confession as having spent the Heats of a distemper'd Breast upon the Table and weakly delineated what I more powerfully suffer'd Neither shall I seem to have described to the Life but only the Blindness and Madness of Love So that I fear a further demand What it is I deliver into your Hands under the notion of a Present However if deluded with the Shadow and Dream of a Representation you require something farther behold more willingly here approaches your Hands either as a Present or as a Captive the very Picture or if you please Original of Love The Answer of R. W. to his Friend importunately desiring to know what LOVE might be I Acknowledge the wanton Tyranny of imperious Love that is always requiring the most difficult Trials of the Affections Now though it be a kinde of an Herculean Labour it self to Love considering those severe duties those toyls and hazards appendant to it as if Cruelty were its sole delight Nevertheless we believe it reasonable what names soever we have given to Love that he should exercise his Soveraignty which is certainly very great and puissant and by the Severity of his Commands that he should augment the glory of his high Rule and our obedient Submission Let him command as well what is beyond as well as what is within the verge of our ability to perform all things but only that one thing Not to Love Let him command nothing below a Miracle seeing that he who exacts the duty affords us also Strength and Power and raises our Wit and Ingenuity above its self transforming Man into a Semi-Deity So that he cannot be said to Love who does not act beyond himself and pursue the accomplishments of his desires with Enterprises equal to his wishes He is no thorough-pac'd Lover who does not something above extraordinary to gain his Prize But justly do you redemand those Affections which you your self have taught though despoil'd of your Faceteness and Eloquence Will it so delight ye to behold in my devoted Breast as in a Mirrour the reverberated resemblance of your self Or to take a thorough view of me as being a piece of your own workmanship because it is impossible that any outward stain should blemish your fair Image the very Spots whereof afford a brightness like those of the Sun Will you not however like a haughty Lady be angry with the Looking-Glass that discovers to your sight Freckles and Deformities not your own and throws a counterfeit Scandal upon your Countenance I know not for what reason but certain it is that we love the very miscarriages of Nature and the disgraces of our own Bodies as old and maimed Images are more religiously ador'd Thus Parents for the most part caress with a more tender Affection as it were to the comfort of their Misfortunes the lamest and most deformed of their Children more vehemently admiring these Monsters of the Womb as the Portenders of some great matter We are pleased to behold the transposed Members of a distorted body moving like Man's Anagram Certainly Deformity is a sacred thing which much more divine than Beauty pleas'd the antient Priests that assum'd Divinity under antie shapes to render their Oracles more reverend which not only terrifies us Mortals but admonishes us withal that this Deformity is rather to be ador'd than lov'd Every one is to himself the most pleasing Theater and the most delectable Object and then the Eye seems to enjoy the Dignity and delights of the Mind when it shoots its piercing sharpness backward upon it self at once both the Spectator and the sight Whatever it be that for double reasons renders us doubly favoured by you ought to be most chiefly in our esteem which if it shew us lame or imperfect under that very notion either of injury or antiquity we are also for that very reason to admire it I am oblig'd to Nature that she hath afforded me a smooth Table from whence to take off so much of your likeness as to delight both her self and you too But it will be a wonder indeed that an Image should talk any longer But I am much more apt to love
solemnly for a time but when the humour was over dissolved their Nuptials and renewed their Divorces as often as the heat of their desire cool'd Whose Favours continue but the short space of a Banquet which presently dismisses the Guests when their Bellies are full Who are altogether ignorant of what they so eagerly desire an accidental Affection springing from the Rage of Desire as Venus formerly from the rage of the Sea Sustain'd by the Drunkenness of Errour but voluntarily condemn'd so soon as they come to themselves I may say indeed that whosoever loves through violence of Passion or Distemper may be thought to burn and rage like men in Feverish Fits but never truely to consent or harmoniously to agree It was not for the maintenance of Luxury but for the Instruction of the world that Nature like Lycurgus provided by a more severe Edict that no person should be without his Friend Prudently done that the same Necessity should be imposed upon us of Living and Loving and that the same Heat should cherish and inflame the Hearts of Men. Thus the Epicureans who could think themselves secure without the Protection of the Gods could not live without Love the Fear and Religion whereof render'd their Lives more pleasant So prone we are rather to feign than confess a Deity And because it is natural to us to be acted by the Instinct of Love and Piety by the same Zeal of Superstition lest we should want an Object of Veneration we adopt into our Friendship Dogs Cats and whatever idle Egypt worshipt Nay for want of Woers the impatient Gellia commits Adultery with her own reflexion in the Looking-Glass and what Egypt would have been asham'd of a more filthy creature than all the Monsters of Nile she falls in lustful Love with her self in this only to be pardon'd for that the same Madness possesses all Mortals rather to love insipidly than not at all Other Affections being either at our own disposal or wasting with their own violence easily vanish Grief if it doth not give way to Reason yields to Time or Hatred Hatred itself reproach'd by crabbed Choler or stifled by Fear grows first of all displeasing to it self Fear also if other Remedies are wanting may be oppressed by the evils themselves and overcome by its own weight may be cured by Insensibility Anger also the fiercest of all the Passions tamely changes into a kinde of Clemency or being satisfied buries its fury in the wound This is the only Passion that riots in Adversity and wantonizes in Oppression not born like the rest to be extinguish'd but being content to cease it passes into Necessity and a voluntary Fate Spontaneously it disrobes it self of that Liberty which it has consum'd in choosing that which with a perpetual desire it may both possess and prosecute what is distastful it may at some time utterly hate For what shame or curb can there be upon Desire whose wishes though erroneous yet with an ingenuous Errour aspire to what they think the noblest of all things He is also esteemed the most unworthy who is not mad beyond all measure who coveting more still thinks he covets not enough and more enjoying believes he enjoys not enough in vain applauding himself as always happy So it is Nature has by the same Edict ordained that we should love none or not the best The first of which is with an inhumane Pride to condemn all humane Kinde The other is the worst sort of Parricide to make away with himself who having the choice of Life who being the Arbiter of his own Nativity when it is in his power to create himself anew in another had rather perish There is but one Kingdome of the Heart like that of Alexander which is due to the best whom to finde out is well worth the labour of Life A person endow'd with all the perfections of Humanity adorn'd with the whole Hyperbole of Vertue which we may either meet with or feign which man has only the liberty to know not to possess Such an one that when we have form'd in our impossible Wishes we shall finde at length to be either an Idea or a Deity But now you 'll say we have imagined one too worthy as to be above being lawful to be beloved as being only fit for Adoration That which is worthy of Love is more worthy of being worship'd These flames are only due to Altars Nature indulg'd this desire which she is not able to satisfie as a reproach to her self But lest that should become a Torment which she intended as one of her chiefest Graces whatever is wanting in the things themselves she would have supplied by our Imagination and Opinion that at least we may be happy in our Frenzy We are deluded by the supposititious Fucus or false colouring of Beauty and are deceived before we seem happy Like Pigmaleon we fall in love with the Statue which we have made not believing it to be carved but begotten Deluded by the Darkness of our own Mist we embrace our Cloud for Juno and it delights us to be deceived So natural it is to Humanity to fail to erre and be beguil'd The Imposture is not put upon our Misfortunes but upon our Wishes to the end the Deceit may more gainfully delight than the juggles of Accomptants and enrich with a specious sort of Gain For that indeed we are more certainly happy in our Credulity and as it happens among many we are richer in the fame and opinion of our Wealth than in the ampleness of our Fortunes Most auspicious Gifts not of Fortune but of Imagination Oh Prodigie of Riches never to be foregone as oft as we think it requisite to be angry with the Gods or jeast with Fortune Which no Violence nor no other opinion can ravish from us but only to supply us with more Let it be so let Variety delight Opinion as the Sister of Fortune or Nature yet shall she not admit Monsters for varieties sake She does not wantonnize in this Levity but strives to supply the defect of things For the Vicissitudes of Affections and things are composed for Solace and Remedy not for nice inspection 'T is not mans fault but the Reproach and Infelicity of Nature that we reprehend the wandering and alternative humours of Love That put off their old Friends like their old Cloaths that slightly taste Men as Bees do Flowers To whom because we propound a Sceptical Love it cannot be thought Inconstancy but Judgment to wander with delight and sip from all Plants that of which they can never finde enough There is nothing that deserves a long Embrace Those things we so much boast of are not Vertues but the shadows of Vertue which like Pictures that are to be lookt on at a distance will not endure a near a close survey The whole name of Constancy is not so much worth that I should not admire clearer Merits that I should not regard the greater Stars because I was once
born under lesser that I should love my Diseases and Distempers lest I should be said to have changed my former Condition that I should submit to Chance or what more often erres my own Judgment as to a certain Destiny Suffer me pray now more vehemently to admire these particles of a Diviner Genius which first astonish'd me in thee grown to a riper perfection in another Permit those progresses in Love which thou thy self hast begot cherish'd up Thou who hast taught me to prefer the candor of the Minde before the Snow of Lillies and rude Sincerity before soft but over-foolish Courtesie hast now taught me upon the sight of a brighter splendour to despise thee unless from thence I may not seem so much to contemn as to adore thee under a most illustrious Image Thus lesser Tapers are not extinguished but out-shone and less Stars for shame abscond themselves when a more splendid Constellation rises Why dost thou invoke the Faith of Gods and Men Thou art belov'd by me on this condition while thou either art or seemest to me to be beyond compare the best of all Behold the insensible Love-sports of Nature behold how she has excited the worst of all her pieces to workmanship to the best of Actions out of an admiration of a more excellent Beauty It was the Will of Nature conscious to her self of Injury and shameful sloath which oftner brings forth Abortives than perfect Births and therefore she has endued them with an Operative Faculty to enable them to come nearer their Idea's and owe their own polishing to themselves Hence the Marigold though fixed in the Earth follows the flight of the Sun and sucking in his Beams with a greedy appetite becomes a vegetable Star With the same emulous Ardour while the Stones imbibe the Ethereal flames they receive a congealed Brightness and solid Light and they that were the excrements of a hard and rigid heap become Jewels and shine no less in the Rock than in the Lovers Rings By this alluring Art while the Ocean admits as well the Image as the Motion of the Moon it seems to correspond with the Intelligence of the Celestial Orb. By this lovely Envy while Iron is drawn away as it were with admiration of the Magnet by and by becomes the Magnet it self it exercises all its Operations and draws as it was drawn before Though Philosophers were wanting we have the Mathematical waves that tell us of the Eclipses of the Moon more certainly than the Ephemerides We have your Astronomer-Flowers that teach us the Motion of the Sun and instead of Dyals shew us the time of the Day And though there were no Spectators of this Theatre yet is universal Nature ravish'd with a Veneration of it self And as both the Eyes of the World so both Worlds contemplate and feed themselves with the mutual sight of each other Nature hath ever provided for her affairs by committing the World to the Guardianship of Love so that an idle Deity may be either denied or contemned But when other things are so order'd as to receive and want only Man knows how to love In those things she has only rough drawn an imperfect Affection to practise in lesser things what she intended to bring to perfection in Man Though I confess this Affection of men hath the same original and growth as man himself being as it were at several births endow'd with Life Sense and Reason For Love at first unfeather'd creeps along by the instinct of formless Sympathy then it comes to use the wings of Desire after that it matures to Manhood becomes Reason which was before the violence of Passion or the weight of the predominant Element For while the Infant-heat sits brooding in the Heart ere it has hatch'd the panting sparks Desire dares hardly give credit to itself When the new-wounded Heart uncertain of the Smiters hand or of the hurt itself feels the pains of Infants when their Teeth first cut their Gums but when Desire encreasing they begin to kiss and bill then Ring-doves you behold not Men When in wanton Contentions they make their Amorous moans then you hear the Turtles voice who being by Nature compos'd to Kindness with a harmless Affection prosecute their innocent Loves while Dolphins and Lizzards prefer humane kinde But a more generous Passion seizes Men whose flames are of full maturity though blinde enough perhaps By this blinde force like the Idalian Doves with their eyes sealed up we are carried upward and ignorantly strive with all our might to reach Heaven as our Nest. In this manner do the very Vices of Lovers shew a nature covetous of Divinity and the very Errours of this Affection breathe somwhat immortal So that that more impure Desire which derides the Nuptials of the Virtues and the Copulation of Mindes that seeks for something to fill its embraces and worships Venus though threatning Storms and Shipwrack to its Nativity seems to be inflam'd not so much with the Tapers of Hymen as with the desire of Eternity while it so eagerly seeks to survive itself and by a continued series of Succession to survive itself He whom a Supper makes thee his Friend and a Morsel causes to sawn upon thee like a Beast who loves thy Dainties not thee He that values Man as he values his Farm and exercises mercenary Love with a trafficking Soul the one makes use of Love like Money but the Money of the Gods by means whereof we traffick with Heaven and enrich ourselves with Divinity the other enjoys his Love for the advantage of Luxury and Banquets for Love is accounted the Nectar of the Gods Both certainly with less Covetousness provide for their own advantage whether he that seeks for a Patrimony or for food out of Affection than he who with a liberal Minde hastens to give away perishing Riches and to transfer them out of the reach of Fortune or Fate before they are quite decay'd Who though he expect no return of Gratitude yet carries off a vast gain which is That he hath done a Kindness So that although he gave greatly away yet his recompence is much larger that is Vertue Great Gifts and such as Modesty almost forbids us to receive are more profitable to the Donor either because they render him the more rever'd as from whom little things are not expected or because he bestows a Benefit more necessary than that of Jove or the Sun itself as from whom Benefits are lookt upon as Debts paid by him out of Duty and Custome whose Munificence is such as if he intended to loose the benefit of Thanks through the largeness and frequency of his Bounty What shall I think of him that seeks to please and not to love Whom I visit like a Summer-tree which affords me leasure and shade but of no use in the depth of Winter to whom we that love more severely are often us'd thunder out this Saying The name of Friend like that of Wife is a name of Dignity
what intent That they may approach their Mistrisses as so many Altars Nay they strive to be decently absent For whatever we love we believe to be every where present She is the Arbitatrix of our Undertakings the Assistant both of our Vertue and Wit the lucky Guide of all our Enterprizes from whom he that goes a Voyage begs fair Weather the Travailer safe Return the Souldier Victory and all from her to whom he has devoted the Spoils of his Enemies Henceforward let it be lawful for Lovers to salute each other with names borrow'd from Heaven and reverently to sooth one another with those Titles under which they are wont to worship the Immortal Gods Neither is there any one who has any reason to envy this Deity who is so easily pleased without slaughter and bloodshed who requires not the fat of beasts but faithful Adorers for his Victims and that he may not want Temples erects Altars and kindles Fires in humane breasts while the God himself converted into fire seems to take care of his own worship And thus it is when a Lover sends forth the sighs of Grief it seems to me like a certain kinde of Lightning breaking from a Cloud with a rumbling Thunder that afterwards vanishes into smoak While he sweats Tears and boyls his Complaints I then think upon the burning of Aetna and Vesuvius vomiting flames in the midst of Snow and clouds of Ashes When burning with a short ardour feigned Love sells it self to counterfeit flames I acknowledge those fictitious Tapers and vain Meteors like the wandering Lights of the middle Region What though Fire serve only for humane Use and for the worship of the Gods What though it not only enlighten but heat out Wits so that Bacchus and Apollo may be truely said to derive their Birth from the flames of Love What though it rage where it findes Obstacles in the way and be nourish'd with Injuries and Offences as with Water All this does but shew the properties of the Ethereal Fire which burns and refreshes which being immortal satisfies itself and needs no fuel For Love contented with it self is the price of its self that being immaculate and inviolable it expiates and takes away the Crimes which it does not admit and maintains the Virgin Honours of the Vestal Flame Lastly This farther property has the Celestial Fire that as the uppermost Element it encompasses the vast Orb for the safeguard of the world Thus the fire of Love possesses the supremest Creatures and preserves and closes all the other Affections In this only unlike that it descends below its Sphere to cherish and foster all the meaner sort of Creatures with vital Heat Thus is Love made equal to those two most pure and powerful Beings God and Fire But that which is number'd among the Miracles of Love astonishes us much more while we feel a burning Fever creeping up and down and burning in the midst of our Bowels and yet nothing appears so that while we feel this Subterraneal Heat yet cannot tell from whence it arises we deny that we burn We admire whence it comes to pass that the Fibres of the Heart like the strings of two Lutes so Harmoniously answer one another To this like the ignorant Musician we stand mute and cry that those Fibres and Strings were formerly extracted out of the same Entrails We grant this Maxime to the Physicians That Motion is a certain consent in Bodies finding the same thing to be true in Minds Nor let us torment our selves with doubting but confidently aver with Plato that Love is a Magician Whence comes it to pass that Souls by a secret contact conceive the Seeds and first Flames of Desire Whence comes it to pass that Lovers like Sorceresses burn and melt away by the means of Images and little Figures the Bowels of wasting men Whence comes it to pass that beautiful Eyes like those of Basilisks bewitch the Sight and intermixing beams with beams knit those Knots and frame those Chains that binde and fetter the Beholders What may I call other than these those soft Charms by which Endymion call'd down the Moon from Heaven What are all those alluring Sobs other than Magic Murmurs and the Philters of Discourse What are Presents other than Charms which infuse a pleasing Poyson into those that wear them I know not whether to admire the forcible Attracts in her that is Beloved or the vanquishing Arguments of obsequiousness in a Lover those Incantations against which there is no Remedy as against Sorcery either by way of Curse or Exorcism Certainly all the whole force of Magic is seated in Love of which this is said to be one Miracle mutually to attract and change things by a certain commutation of Nature For that the Members of this world like the Arteries of some great Animal depending upon the same communion of Nature are coupled together by a Spirit that throws it self into the whole Body By reason of this binding and commerce of things it secretly comes to pass that Love by a mutual Attraction of Souls like a Disease contracted by Contagion seizes chiefly upon the sound yet by and by willing to submit to the pleasing Distemper while the Captive more severely bindes himself than findes himself bound in these soft Chains and silken Fetters and like the Chain itself is ignorant of the embraces which he enjoys Methinks I seem rather to suffer than describe the passionate and violent Desires of Lovers and to act my Argument before I have finish'd it Before being gently deluded with Dreams and Apparations I rather underwent than described the alternative Fluctuations of a Madness newly enrag'd But so soon as the lovely Countenance of my Mistress had infected my Blood not with the rude Image but with the shadow of the Image so soon as it has signed my very Soul and imprinted its indelible Characters and possess'd the entire man no otherwise in my sick Breast than beneath the toss'd and troubled waves an incertain species and shadow wither'd and meager which flies the Approacher and vanishes from my Embraces Streightway removing gently Cupid's Vail no sooner does the divine Form of tasted Felicity shew it self but a troublesom Ignorance begat a care in me of seeking into particulars what Disposition what Endowments what Family what Pedigree For this is the first and last of Lovers cares and joys not only to call to remembrance their former Sports and rudiments of their Amours but also to enquire into the years and worth of the Parents and to discourse from what noble beginnings their Friendship took its rise Whither does this first Violence not only of Nature but of Reason carry us Voluntarily deceived we not only adore Vertue itself but whatever carries with it the outside and appearance of Vertue Sometimes that difficulty which guards the path of Vertue with a sacred Horrour and drives away the prophane Vulgar repels and yet allures with flatterng Injuries We more greedily suck the Honey that