Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	father_n	know_v	truth_n	5,230	5	5.7940	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52003	Entertainments of the cours: or, Academical conversations. Held upon the cours at Paris, by a cabal of the principal wits of that court. / Compiled by that eminent and now celebrated author, Monsieur de Marmet, Lord of Valcroissant. And rendered into English by Thomas Saintserf, Gent.; Entretiens du cours. English	Marmet, Melchior de, seigneur de Valcroissant.; St. Serfe, Thomas, Sir, fl. 1668.	1658 (1658)	Wing M701; ESTC R202859	101,018	264

I more freely trust my self in thy hands then this evening Certainly my Lord said the Count de Rioumayon your Coachman must needs be guided by the good spirit which governs you and hath some secret intelligence with your fair passion since he hath brought you unawares to the place where your inclinations are Look there goes her Coach you know whom I mean and you know better then any body else the truth of what is said thereof at Court Go you are a wag said the Marquess What Will you submit your thoughts to calumnious reports and suffer your judgement to accomplish the ruine of a Lady of honour Indeed if it be true that those things which present themselves to our eyes make more impression upon our mindes then Reason and that we are more dispos'd to prefer detraction and slander before the true relation of such vertues as are found in a person I confess it looks as if I were dispenst with for speaking advantagiously of the merit of her whom you now hinted in regard that she gives so clear arguments to entertain you upon the misfortune which is befaln her in my behalf But I should think my self a Traytor to so many Vertues as she hath if I let you not know that she possesses them without spot and without defect and that after having vanquisht those Monsters which might stir rebellion in her Soul she hath made them slaves to her good nature The satisfaction of our own Consciences is the soveraign remedy of discontentment of mind and the true testimony to justifie our actions It were a baseness to saint upon report only for whilst the calm is coming the storm ceases and when we have innocency for our shield the sharpest shots of calumny prove dull and ineffective This is the reason why this Lady hath never much troubled her felf at whatsoever the whole Court hath said concerning our frequentation and howbeit some ill interpreters might censure her of impudence for shewing so little shame thereof yet are the most setled judgements sufficiently perswaded to the contrary and the most cleer-sighted eyes explicate to her advantage that her constancy and stability are the justifications of her innocence and that good intentions never make any account at all of the noises of detraction Guilt is never without a character we may read the fear of punishment in the faces of offenders and though their inward remorse be indeed no great affliction to the body yet doth it torment and confound the mind with horrible thoughts and dreams which plainly appear afterwards in their eyes and express that the contempt of vertue hath caused an insurrection of Passions He who violated and murthred Cleomia had strange visions after her death Apollodorus his dream that he was flead by the Scythians was a visible punishment of the treason he had secretly committed Deuxis for having falsely boasted that he had enjoyed a certain Roman Lady had never afterwards the heart to come into her company and testified by the shame of his flight the falsity both of his supposition and of his slander Now if these Heros who had invincible spirits had yet the pictures of shame fear and terror exprest upon their faces how I pray you can it be possible for a woman whose sex is no lesse bashful then frail to have the confidence to appear at the Cours and shew her face after having blemisht her honour and especially being publisht As there are different Lovers so are there different Loves and although that sympathy which is peradventure between us may have produc't some frequentation and that frequentation some little kindnesse yet neither have her desires nor mine transcended the bounds of an agreeable and innocent conversation He would have gone on but the Counsellor interrupted him saying I am sorry that the confusion and rumbling of the Coaches makes me lose one half of those fine things which my Lord Marquess hath uttered and that instead of satisfaction I receive trouble from his discourse It is true indeed said the Count de Rioumayon we can hardly hear one another speak here and if we stay we shall lose all the pleasure of our walk which consists chiefly in conversation I think so too said the Baron and therefore let us withdraw our selves out of the croud where the best divertisement we can have is but to see the going up and down of Coaches and such persons in them as are indifferent to us and where we shall also be deprived of the charms and sweetnesse of your entertainments Shall we go out and walk in some place apart where we may have more quiet and more conveniency to entertain our selves They all agreed and the Baron having commanded a Page to bid the Coachman drive off from the Cours and carry them gently to some private walk by the River side Our Philosopher said the Marquess is highly pleased with this humor for he is so much in love with the Country and solitude that he is out of his center when he is not in his Country-house It is true said Angelin that I am extreamly taken with the Country and that I find all my delights there but you shall never hear me say that I am in my Element there though I enjoy the sweets of my solitude according to my wish for this term is followed by a temptation of vanity to which I am not subject and I content my self with the innocent use of those pleasures it gives me without staining them with vain-glory According to the example of an ancient Grecian it hath been counted the Paradise of the Learned and the Element of good wits but as our sight is shortned and hath its distance bounded by the objects which limit it so do persons of an ordinary soul find but their equal proportion of contentment in the employments of the Country whereas the most sublime ones have matter enough to set the strong imagination they have of good things on work as not being diftracted either by the embarasments of the world or by the serious divertisements which men receive in the Towns Aristotle's Master said that his friends were his importuners and the theeves of time Now if he being a Philosopher and living as such were importuned by his friends and they were a burthen to him how would you have a man who is always in company to settle himself upon an assiduous study or upon weighty reflexions And how is it possible for him to do any thing perfectly amongst interruptions For there is much difference between the Active and the Contemplative life and the later of these is much more nice and delicate then the former and therefore no wonder if the ancient Philosophers succeeded better in their Science then they of later Ages and if the old Anchorits found felicity and the chief degree of perfection in the life which they led in the Desarts which was purely speculative and where there was nothing to divert them from the meditation

honour they are lesse dangerous and more harmlesse in the trade they drive as hurting no body but themselves and some fond blockheads then those others who under the false apparence of modesty and civility palliate their brutality or their interest with gallantry and who are indeed the poyson of Nature which every one should do well to shun like the Plague I know that Coach said the Count and I wonder whether the owner of it be there with that honorable Society Who is it said the Baron A young Gentleman of condition and the Marquesse de Bon air's Country man said the Count who was not long since a Fryer and being ashamed to shew his head in own Country came and hid himself here in base and infamous places where he goes abroad but seldome for fear of being seen and keeps no other company but such a Crew as this which will ruine him and bring him peradventure to the end allotted for such courses I know both his Person and his Family said the Marquesse and indeed it is pity that the poor Gentleman is grown so debaucht for he is of a good descent and hath both Natural and Artificial parts most worthy of his quality and of a better fortune then he hath got himself I was once employed for him and I would I could have given his Father that satisfaction which he desired of me in his behalf But the young man hath carried himself ill very much wronged his Parents This always comes said the Counsellor of wild and rash actions and of weighty resolutions ill digested which cause shame and repentance and sometimes desolation in Families I will tell you said the Marquesse the story of this person which is after a manner Romansick that so you may see the different effects of his Passions His Father is an Officer of a Soveraign Court of our Province and one of the most esteem'd and powerful of his Company He bred up this Son with great expense and all imaginable care and really by his good nature and conditions he at first answered all his Fathers expectations and grew a very compleat young man as being enricht and adorn'd with many fine qualities and Sciences He daunces and plaies on the Lute most admirably well he is very learned and most accomplisht in all his Academical Exercises and besides all this he hath a very handsome body and a gentile behaviour which had already gotten him some good esteem at Court But since he hath learnt ill customes neglected all his good parts and done horrible things For being taken with that natural affection to his Country which is common to us all our native air seeming sweeter and pleasanter to us then that of the gallantest Court in the world he would needs go taste the delights thereof and make his Parents and Friends spectators of his good qualities But this journey proved fatal to him as being the source of all his misfortunes and desolations For he fell so in love with a young woman who was not of his condition as to ruine himself by it Now his Father who knew him to be of so violent and impetuous a Spirit that he would undertake any thing to please his fancy endeavoured to send him away thereby to divert him from his Amours but all in vain for after having used all imaginable diligences as well by rendernesse as harshnesse and by intreaties as mennaces without being able to perswade him he desired me as knowing me to be one of his friends and conceiving me to have some influence upon him to disswade him from the design he had taken to marry that person who was so much inferior to him both in birth and fortune and of a contrary Religion besides as being the Parsons daughter of the Parish which most of all troubled the poor Father Wherefore I being in that Town whether I went to keep the Carnaval and taking him one day abroad in my Coach I attempted to divert him from his said purpose and after having intimated to him his Fathers most passionate opposition I askt him whether it were true as I had heard that he intended to seek contentment and repose in a Marriage where he would be sure to find nothing but disquiet and vexation I told him that women were strong chains to intangle men and that being Diseases as the Proverb says they are if they make us not keep our beds yet they make us keep our chamber and weaken us and deprive us of the delights of the Court And it is said I a strange thing that every body desires to marry and to grow old but when they have once obtain'd their desires they repent and lament it I did not signifie to him that I was so great an enemy to Nature as to intend to disswade him altogether from marriage and to embrace a single life but to make him defer it yet some time and shun that rock and that gulf into which he was going to cast himself to the extream discontentment of his Parents and the utter destruction of his affairs In order to which I spake thus to him If you resolve to take a wife you hazzard the infringment of your liberty you will have but a bad successe of the enterprize if you charge your self with so heavy a burthen Consider it maturely before you do it a Wife is a fine piece of housholdstuff in our neighbours house and he who intends to live happily in this world must wish every body else to marry and never marry himself Experience indeed ought to have cured men of this folly since it hath taught them that they quietly enjoy the Estates of their Parents but that those which are brought them by their wives are so fatal to their Families that they do not only not receive any benefit from them but by a contagious conjuncture they often cause them to lose their own But as for you who pretend to a mean and unworthy Match you have no cause to fear that for many reasons in regard you are to have nothing with her and I tell you as a friend that if Love and Generosity makes you scorn interest at least ought you to consider birth and Religion and not cast your Father into a mortal affliction nor give him just ground to disinherit you and make you miserable Consider that a single man may do much with little means and that our own inconveniences are insupportable enough without charging our selves with those of a whole Family That a Batchellors life and the delights of the Court where your Father intended to settle you are powerful charms to stay you there That God amongst the manifold and various afflictions which he cast upon that illustrious Patient in the holy Scripture left him his Wife as the Alpha and Omega that is the Source and Compliment of all his miseries and in fine that this Evil though it be called a necessary one is accompanied with many other and that a married

ENTERTAINMENTS OF THE COURS OR ACADEMICAL CONVERSATIONS Held upon the Cours at Paris by a Cabal of the Principal Wits of that Court. Compiled by that eminent and now celebrated Author Monsieur de Marmet Lord of Valcroissant And Rendered into English by Thomas Saintserf Gent. LONDON Printed by T. C. and are to be sold at the three Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard 165 8. ENTERTIENMENTS of the COVRS at PARIS TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE JAMES Marquess of Montrose Earl of Kincairn and Lord Mugdock My Lord THe World will perceive how hasty I am to throw my self at your Lordships feet by this poor Dedication for rather than bring no Offering I have fetcht a small Present from France to pass through England to arrive at the happiness of your Lordships Patronage I confess my Author inscrib'd it To the Wits and I do so too in sending it to Your Lordship whose large Soul is so brimful of knowledge that the measure is admired when compared with Your years But our thoughts are answerd as soon as we remember that immortal Hero Your glorious Father whose Spirit was so emminent for Speculation and Practice that his Camp was an Academy admirably replenished with Discourses of the best and deepest Sciences whose several Parts were strongly held up under Him the Head by those knowing Noble Souls the Earls of Kinoul and Airly the Lords Gourdon Ogilvy Naper and Maderty and the two famous Spottswoods Sir Robert and his Nephew whose learned heads were too precious to be cut off by them who knew not how to understand them This I am bold to mention because such Noble Discourses banisht from his Quarters all obscene and scurrilous language with all those offensive satyrical Reflections which now are the only current Wit among us and if any such peep'd forth in his presence his severe looks told the speaker it was unwelcome Nor did this proceed from a narrownesse in his heart being to all who knew him one of the most Munificent as well as Magnificent Personages in the world which too well appear'd when Cities after Victories tender'd large sums to be freed from the present incumbrance of his Army He satisfied their desires but refused their Moneys still saying that he could not at once have their Hearts and their Purses his work was to vindicate his Masters rights and restore them to their wonted happinesse Nay his unexpressibly malicious Enemies found that his Mercy transcended their Malice when those brave Persons after Quarter given were butcher'd at St. Andrew's he refusd to retaliate on the Prisoners in his power saying their Barbarity was to Him no example and if the meanest Corporal in his Army should give Quarter to their General it should be strictly and religiously observd And after all when commanded to lay down Arms though he then saw it destructive to his Master he in meer Passive obedience submitted as soon as he obtained Indemnity for them who ingaged with him without paying one farthing Composition nobly suffering himself to be banished which be it recorded to all Posterity was put in execution at the Haven of Montrose the Third day of September a day which twice since hath been registred in bloud at Dunbar and at Worcester All this might seem Flattery to your Lordship from me who had the honour of employment under his Command both at home and abroad if it were not known to the world for Truth since the Soul of the Great MONTROSE lives eminently in His SON which began early to shew its vigour when your Lordship then not full twelve years old was close Prisoner in Edinborough-Castle from whence you nobly refus'd to be exchanged lest you cost your great Father the benefit of a Prisoner wherein He gladly met Your Resolution Both so conspiring to this glorious Action that neither out-did the other though all the world besides May both Your Names still live to fill Chronicles whereof we dare not doubt since your hopeful alliance by your incomparable Lady to the illustrious Family of the renowned DOUGLASSES for whose Honour here and Felicity hereafter may Your Lordship accept the Duty and God hear the Prayers of My Lord Your Lordships most obedient and most devoted humble Servant THOMAS SAINTSERF A short Table of the Subjects handled in this Book 1. HE maintains the honour of Ladies page 4. 2. Of the Country p. 8. 3. Of Sympathy p. 10. 4. Of Habits or Habitudes in all their parts p. 13. 5. Of Quarrels and Duels p. 25. 6. Of the Palm and the Laurel p. 33. 7. Of Glory the sole reward of Champions and Conquerers p. 35. 8. Of Sea-sickness p. 42. 9. Of the Turks maxim p. 47. 10. Of Clemency p. 52. 11. The Relation of a Comedy of the Days Reign of Semiramis p. 61 12. An Invertive against an able Poet p. 76. 13. For the Country p. 85. 14. Of Eloquence and the delicate parts thereof p. 83. 15. An Apology for Monsieur de Balzac p. 94. 16. of the distinction of Wits p. 100. 17. Of Metoposcopy p. 118. 18. Of the infallibility of the Horoscopes p. 120. 19. Whence comes the folly of learned men p. 127. 20. Whether the World be Eternal or no p. 131. 21. Of Academies and the differences thereof p. 138. 22. Of the posture men ought to be in at Court p. 151. 23 Of Balls and Masques p. 177 I Humbly desire my worthy Readers out of their induigence to my necessary absence from the Press and the Correctors praeteritions to mend these following errors which as they are many so are they I hope the grossest in the Book by reading Anthonomasies for Anchonomasies page 21. as indifferent for an indifferent p. 24. no where for no more p. 31. Cacozelous for Carozelous p. 34. Of the Preface and of the Work Intrigo for Intrique Intrigo for Intrique Page 2. Cleomica for Cleomia p. 6. his time for time p 9. Intrigos for Intriques p. 9. reiterated for resiterated p. 12. any for my p. 15. all Councel for all the Councel p. 28. nicenes for nicens p. 29. my modesty for modesty p. 32. in some kind for in some sort p. 39. Universe for Divers p. 40. Helm Helmet p. 44. Top-Mast for Top p. 44. Insolvent for Insolvable p. 45. gold for good p. 52. a Barbarian for Barbarians p. 54. vertue for vertues p. 57. sufficient for sufficiently p. 57. in assiduity for his assiduity p. 60. Semiramis for Smn ramis p. 73. as for at p. 66. Intrigo for Intrique p. 66. then it would for the it would p. 67. reduc't for deduc't p. 70. in the Communions for in Communions p. 70. those for these p. 72. a most for most a p. 77. Philoxcnes for Philonenes p. 78. Mines for Mimes p. 78. his talent for this talent p. 81. Nominizing for Nounnizing p. 83. affectations for affections p. 84. That is for That in p. 86. Clarity for Charity p. 89. I would not have refused the Challenge for I would Challenge p. 100. blinded