Linguistic DNA - Concept Modelling Demonstrator

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	brave_a	young_a	youth_n	27	3	8.1167	4	false

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78017	Balzac's remaines, or, His last letters· Written to severall grand and eminent persons in France. Whereunto are annexed the familiar letters of Monsieur de Balzac to his friend Monsieur Chapelain. Never before in English.; Correspondence. English. Selections	Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez, seigneur de, 1597-1654.; Chapelain, Jean, 1595-1674.; Dring, Thomas.	1658 (1658)	Wing B616; Thomason E1779_1; ESTC R209057	331,826	458

comforted to behold this Ray of the Age of Eloquence at a time when one would think the Goths were newly risen again to sack Aquitaine and replant their gibberish but I concluded when I read your Latine that they were not yet Masters of the place where you were since you held out still for old Rome and their savage style had not gained you to be an abettor of it Continue I beseech you this laâ—dable designe oppose your self stoutly against the vicious imitation of some young Doctors who labour with might and maine for the re-establishment of Barbarism Their phrases are either forraigne or poetical and their Periods Rhimes and Antitheses If scurvy books afford any word either rotten with age or monstrous by the newness of it a bolder metaphor then usuall or an insolent and rash expression they rake up this dung with care and bedeck themselves with it with much curiosity They believe themselves much more handsome after taking in those ornaments then they were before This is a strange malady and a filthy love I cannot tell what their braines are made of to contemne the force the vigour and the lustre of Rome to become enamoured only on her diseases and her carkasse on her sepulcher and her ashes Or if there be any excesse in the last words what do they think they doe when they preferre before Senatours and Consulls of the Common-wealth all magnificent and glittering in their purple such poore tattered slaves the remainders of warre and persecution who after the ruine of the same Republique are come to beg and weare their ragges in the Provinces You easily discerne that in these two different Parties on our side we have our Livy our Salust our Cicero and on the other side they have their Cassiodore their Symmachus and their Apuleius coeterÃ¡que id genus ut meus ait Damon dehonestamenta Latinitatis I wish them better and sounder fancies and would very faine see an end of their rebellion against the true and lawfull Nephewes of Remus I beg of you reverend father the good examples you can bestow upon us but especially I entreat your good opinion and beseech you to believe me as truly I am Reverend father Your c. Ap. 3. 1643. LETTER V. To the reverend Father du Creux a Divine of the society of Jesus Rhetorick-Professour Reverend father I Had a sight of five or six leaves the other day which I admired and without question you saw them before me since they came from your father Sirmond he is an admirable father I have told you often but he is admirable in divers respects and is not to be lookt on only one way he is provided to instruct the learned and to delight meaner capacities he hath both the solid and the subtle part of learning and not to speak of the riches of a choise knowledge managed by a Magisteriall judgment the dispenser and regulatour of it I observe yet in his fourscore all the fire all the brave blood all the gallantry of Spirit that can be discovered in the very youth of the Demy-Gods If your Christian severity will not cannot digest that word let me say at least in the youth of such men as are more happily born then the rest I beseech you contrive it so that your young people set before them this man who is an honour both to his Age and Country as a copy how to write by and not some raw Latinists who would breed Schisms and Heresies in Eloquence who are crueller enemies of ancient Rome then ever Hannibal Iugurtha Mithridates c. They write iron and stones as they confesse themselves if not mudde and smoak as some upbraid them for Quis furor ille novus postponere casta profanis Impurasque sequi neglecto fonte lacunas Et tenebras sordesque tuo praeferre nitori Quis Romam violare luto quod Barbara vexit Tempestas olim in Latium nisi natus iniquo Sydere nunc velit Romani nominis hostis You see an enthusiasm ever possesses me when I discourse with you I sigh after next Thursday's conversation and rest Reverend father Your c. Aug. 30. 1640. LETTER VI. To the Reverend father Stephen of Bourges a Preaching Capuchin Reverend father I Send you back the Manifesto and expect the Exhortations you did me the favour to promise me It is not so much curiosity to look on them as fine things as an intention to be benefited by them as saving things that obliges me once more to desire them of you and you well remember the old Roman saying Medecines do no good unlesse they stay by it Which words cannot for they passe by without any stopping since your Latin-Country-friend will be our Nymph's Poet advise him to lay down the Character of Virgil in his Eclogues for his Idea I meet not with any Venice-glasse more polished or cleare then that Ovid's sweetnesse and facility likes me exceedingly under favour of the Critick Victorius and the Hypercritick As for Lucan Statius and Claudian they rant too high and make too loud a noise in a sick man's chamber They are Bells Drummes and Timbrels which we admit not into our Musick I write this to you in a huddle and have but this moment to tell you I am Reverend father Your c. Ap. 3. 1645. LETTER VII To Monsieur de MerÃ© Knight SIR YOur judgment is true the productions of these fine wits are neither free nor naturall A straining and forcednesse is discernable every where and aiming to become admirable they happen to be prodigious They do not consider that Monsters are produced by excesse as well as deficiency and that Giants no more then dwarfs can be said to be of a handsome stature But shall we put those you speak of in the Catalogue who talked so highly to you of the Roman Majesty and the noblenesse of their style have a care Sir how you condemne them I beg their pardon of you for a more considerable interest then their own For in earnest if they are culpable Virgil cannot be innocent if in their Poems Caesar forgets his modesty what I beseech you doth the Head of Caesars race in the Aeneids do when being asked his name he answers Sum pius Aeneas famÃ¢ super aethera notus When he proposes himselfe as a pattern and Idea of true vertue Disce puer virtutem ex me c. When he styles himselfe the great Aeneas and believes a man doth not repine to dye because t' was he that killed him Hoc tamen infelix miseram solabere mortem Aeneae magni dextrÃ¢ cadis c We will examine these three passages at our first interview though you do not give me hopes of any such thing nor your Letter promise me your company I am with all my soul SIR Your c. Oct. 4. 1646. LETTER VIII To Monsieur Colardeau the Kings Attourney in Fontenay SIR I Applaud the designe you do me the favour to impart to me and it will be

you will dispense with a vow for me which I am not able to performe Instead of the journey to Tholouse which I promised you I beseech you admit of that to Saint Amant which I will begin the next day after your arrivall thither I expect that time with impatience and am after my Old manner preparing many Questions for you to decide and difficulties to resolve in the mean time since you desire to know the successe of the enterprize of honest Monsieur Lirieux who was resolved to have made me a great Lord I will tell you that for my own particular I am very well satisfied with it It is true he did not bring me what he sought after but my Lord sent me so civil and hansome a refusall that I esteeme it much more then that which was requested of him in my favour He would without Question have granted the thing if he had not had a designe to oblige me higher by not doing it The manner with which he shifted off his liberality was so magnificent and he took such especiall care to enrich it with many fine words and faire hopes that I ought to reckon it one of the greatest favours that possibly I could receive from his goodnesse He that can ruine us with a word obliges us infinitely when he bestows two dozen of lines to delude us I am My Lord Your c. May. 25. 1636. LETTER XXIII To Monsieur the Marquesse de la Case SIR SInce my diseases have forced me to a divorce from my muses and a renunciation for three entire months of all things printed and written my silence hath a much more lawfull excuse then I could wish it and I do not conceive but instead of reproaching with my lazinesse you will take compassion on my hard fortune It was in earnest a very dysastrous happe to have a treasure so long in ones custody and not dare touch it to have the possession of one of the finest things in the world without the possible power of enjoyment This fine thing Sir is the Genealogie you were pleased to communicate to me and if I tell you the multitude of those illustrious names dazelled me and that confluence of starrs which makes the milky way in heaven does not cast such a splendour nor enclose so many Demy-gods I shall possibly speak like a Poet yet offer no violence to the purity of truth You have that which Kings cannot confer upon their favourits that which was wanting to Augustus Son in Law to the brave and magnanimous Agrippa And who knows not that his obscure extraction and the blemishes of his family could not be clensed with many consulships and the supreame command of the Roman Armyes There was ever some bold spirit or other that upbraided him of the newnesse of his Grandeur and the defect of those riches wherewith you abound If it were possible to drive a trade with such a stock so much desired you would have a surplusage after you had supplyed a number of great Commanders who are unprovided of it Iohn de Wert would be one of your Merchants Generall Beck would give you a competent portion of what he hath pillaged in the wars for three or four of your illustrious names There would be thronging to the door of your Cabinet and such Sons of Earth and Night would come thither to seek Parents and Lustre But the great consideration is that the present doth not degenerate from the glory of the past and that your Vertue is worthy its Original In the conversation of an afternoon which I had once the honour to spend with you you manifested such a pure and naturall generosity that should your Heroes return to see the world again I make no doubt but thâ—y would owne you by that very marke and immediately say This is our true blood For the excellencie of your soul either I know not what capacity is or yours is the clearest and most delicate in the discerning and choice of things I have admired the rare productions of it and should I go no further than your mysterious Grotto yet you would be one of my best Authors Sir and whom I would most readily alledge Is it true that among an infinite generation of ravenous Birds that unroof houses suck humane bloud depopulate Citties and Countries you have caused one to be drawn beyond comparison bigger then the rest that teares the Globe of the world with his pounces and pulls in Pieces what God had so well composed And is it possible this Caprichio is originally Saintonge comes it not from Rome or Florence or at least from Paris If the glory of the invention be due to you I congratulate you for the giving birth to so handsome a Fable although I am sorry that I knew it not nor received your Pedigree in those dayes when I could have written gay letters I should not then have contented my self with such slight dress and ornaments as this appeares in nor the naked protestation I now make you not being able to embellish it with my ancient colours of being with all my soul SIR Your c. Feb. 7. 1646. LETTER XXIIII To Monsieur d'Argenson Councellour to the King Comptroller of the Revenue in Poitou Saintonge c. SIR I Just now received the Letter you did me the honour to write me It is indeed properly a commentary on my discourse of Glory but such a one as corrects and reformes the Text and instructs and Catechises the Authour I yield up my opinions to your and you have absolutely convinced me so that if I knew my selfe as capable of the employment you designe me as I acknowledge it is better then that which hitherto hath taken up my care you should in a short time have a Treatise of Christian Humility of my making to cause you to lose the unsavory rellish which that of worldly Glory hath left behind it I made it formerly on an occasion that obliged me to it and my designe in it was rather to condemn Avarice then plead for Vanity But Sir I must now let you see that Secular Authours are not alwayes profane ones and we sometimes confine upon matters of piety Here is something concerning Apostolicall and Religious Rome that you may not think I am inseperably addicted to consular and triumphing Rome The work is Christian and composed in the Language of the Church and Monsieur the Cardinall Bentivoglio hath approved it Yet I beseech you expect nothing regular or dogmaticall in it I have not argued in mode and figure nor sliced out my matter into Sections and Paragraphs I have chosen the style of the ancient Prophets rather then that of the moderne Doctours and though I am not so good a Divine as Becanus I would very faine be as good as Orpheus if it be too much to say as David I shall know your opinion of my Divinity and my verses when I have the honour to see you This cannot be so soon as I wish it

sutable companions For besides the great Poet which I acknowledge you to be I account you also an eminent Counsellor of State Secretary and Ambassadour in a word a person most accomplished in all things And I never give any other Character of you to those that demand of me who that perfect friend is I have at Court and of whom I make all my glory Et haec non animo adulatorio ad aulicas artes composito dicta sint Jure tuo habes testem qui si sciens fallat c. The rest another time for at present I am able to proceed no further but remain SIR Your c. Balzac 1 Decemb. 1639. LETTER XXVII SIR I Am but ill affected with the deportment of the Italian Paricide and the Muses Balzacides doe no lesse distaste it then the Putean's The pious offices which he renders to the memory of his friend gave me infinite contentment and I have testified as much But I cannot endure that he should drive a Trade with them It must needs be that he has little knowledge of our Court since he addresses himselfe to Schollars to be his Soliciters and to gaine him kindnesse from a man they never see He is yet more strangely mistaken in the choise of his subject For you may believe that if he escape being derided for his Panglossie he will at least receive but little thanks for this Monsieur the Cardinall may willingly bear with his Panegyricks and pay him for some of them but he is not concerned in a Funerall Oration for people that he never heard of It seems the famous Tâ—pler is come back to drink at Paris and that he could not be long absent from the center of his Luxury I beseech you Sir let me know from him where Monsieur Maynard is for whom my curiosity is uncessant If you also happen into the company of Monsieur de la Pigeonnier you will infinitely oblige me by desiring of him the Manuscript Works of the late du Vivier which are in his hands I think he will not refuse you and if you will do me the pleasure to send them hither I shall return them with speed and before he can imagine they are gone so long a journey This du Vivier had a pretty way of raillerie and because it may be thought I had some share in his death I believe my selfe obliged to perform some duty to his memory He writ me word by the Messenger from Blois to Paris that he had lost his Father and that himselfe should infallibly follow unlesse I comforted him for that affliction I was negligent after my custome and rendred him not the office he required at the time appointed As for him he made good his word and the following Messenger by whom I intended my answer told me the person to whom I addressed it was no longer of this World Behold a fatall sloathfulnesse and which may give warning to all people that write to me in that manner for I know at length I shall become incorrigible I am SIR Your c. Balzac 15. Decemb. 1639. LETTER XXIX SIR YOu may be assur'd by my former Letters that I have received yours and that the Elogium of your Marchionesse is not lost if it were she that sent you so many Notes they might be tolerated with patience But the persecution of the other is insupportable and I swear unto you I would never have said a good word of her if I had known she did so perpetually assassinate you with her Writings I should have begun long since to deplore your fortune The would needs heretofore play with me at that sport but I was more valiant then you and acquitted my selfe of her couragiously She made a thousand false thrusts and I received a whole Bushell of Tickets but without losing one jot of my dumbe gravity This is the way to treat Ladies of that kind whether they be Muses or Fairies or which you love better Sybils You see my old practice I am ready to do worse in case of necessity 'T is not because I am full of imployment but for that I am so discontented and weary with the continued torture of my maladies that I know not on which side to turn my self I am in great fear for Piedmont that is for you and a little Nephew I have there who may possibly be troden down in the croud Our friends are of great worth but the Princes of Savoy must not be neglected and there being brave spirits on both sides I apprehend a terrible slaughter unlesse Heaven avert it I am proud of the good opinion that Monsieur Spanheim has of me for he is a person whom I infinitely esteem If there be any thing of his abroad besides the two Books which I have already seen I beseech you inform my Stationer of it and let him send them Otherwise I never make any uncivill request nor desire to see that which is kept secret Hence it is that I mortifie my curiosity with my discretion and am contented to know that Monsieur le Maistre can make nothing but what is rare and excellent You are wholly silent concerning my affections I meane Monsieur Conrart and Monsieur Menage Be pleâ—s'd to let tâ—em know I have still the same passion for them and be confidâ—ntly assur'd that I am more perfectly then any other in the world I am SIR Your c. Balzac 20 Decemb. 1639. The End of the Fourth Book FAMILIAR LETTERS OF M. de BALZAC To M. CHAPELAIN The Fifth Book LETTER I. SIR I Saw yesterday the Duke of Rochefoucaut who told me many things and amongst the rest that your Signora Vittoria takes the little man we know for a little fool It is the more likely to be true because the number of that Order is very great and yet it may not be so because the Court oftentimes condemns a man for a wry mouth or one simple look I understand from the same Author that Moses saved was the delight and passion of Monsieur and Madam of Liancourt Besides I have received the book of Holstenius and the Tyrannique Love of Monsieur de Scudery by the reading of which I must confesse to you I am still warm'd and agitated 'T is true there are some few things in that piece which I could wish he would alter and himself may take notice of them but the rest are in my opinion incomparable which move the passions after a strange manner which make me shed tears in despight of me and are the cause that the Kid and Scipio are no longer my favourits perhaps it is because we ordinarily judge in favour of things and persons that are present and forget what is past However it be I shall not be displeased that Monsieur de Scudery understand he hath done what he would with me and hath taken me down from my altitude of Philosophy to range me amongst the common croud But I beseech you Who is that gallant person whom you

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