Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	keep_v	young_a	youth_n	29	3	7.6015	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59539	Discourses useful for the vain modish ladies and their gallants under these following heads, viz. I. Of some of the common ways many vertuous women take to lose their reputation, &c. II. Of meer beauty-love, &c. III. Of young mens folly in adoring young handsom ladies, &c. IV. Of the power womens beauty exercises over most young men. V. Of the inconstancy of most ladies, especially such as are cry'd-up beauties, &c. VI. Of marriage, and of wives who usurp a governing power over their husbands. VII. Of the inequality of many marriages, with the sad end that usually attend such matches. VIII. Against maids marrying for meer love, &c. IX. Against widows marrying. X. Against keeping of misses. XI. Of the folly of such women as think to shew their wit by censuring of their neighbours. XII. Of the French fashions and dresses, &c. XIII. Of worldly praises which all ladies love to receive, but few strive to deserve. XIV. Useful advices to the vain and modish ladies, for the well regulating their beauty and lives. By the right honourable Francis Lord Viscou	Shannon, Francis Boyle, Viscount, 1623-1699.	1696 (1696)	Wing S2963A; ESTC R222490	137,565	280

possible a Widow may Marry an ill Man and not be miserable but 't is impossible a Man can keep a Miss and not be wicked 'T is a common Proverbial saying That a Wife is a necessary Evil which I fancy is not to be taken in the sense most do that Men cannot not live without them but because Men are still bound to live with them for whilst they are Wives tho far from being good ones yet poor Husbands are oblig'd to serve out their time of bondage according to agreement for better for worse till death them do part But now for the new Mode of protempore Wives called Misses they are generally look'd upon by our Gallants and keepers of them as only Tenants at will to Mens Persons and Purses being tied to them in no other manner than we are to reading Romances on which we may begin when we will and leave off when we please for we are not oblig'd to read longer in them than they suit our humor and please our fancy Indeed Misses are now become in most great Towns especially London to Gentlemen as Books are in Stationers Shops to Scholars where they may pick and chuse Read sometimes this kind of Books another that sort all or any and hire them by the Day Month or Year and when they have read them over as oft as they please and have no longer delight in them or farther use of them they may return them and leave them where they found them and there 's no harm done they lying ready expos'd for the next Courteous comer Misses in Towns are like Free-booters at Sea no Purchase no Pay they are never out of their way except to Heaven so they can but meet a prize in it indeed our fine young Gallants are wise in this particular but pray do not ask me in what other lest you puzle me and this their wisdom consists only in chusing of two evils the least for they will keep Misses which is ill but they will not be bound to keep them longer than during pleasure which is less ill than a longer time that is they will be tied to Misses by no other Law than that dearly beloved one of sweet variety Misses being to be us'd but like slight summer Garments which are only useful in the youthful Spring or hot Summer Season of Mens Lives and may without much Ceremony or great difficulty be put on or cast off 'twere well if the sin of using them could be so too lightly worn and cheaply bought Misses being but a kind of Summer-Fruit for present eating not long keeping for their beauty will never hold out long after a hot Venus blast or burning clap of thunder and their Bodies are often withered and rotten before they are near ripe in substance and perfection as many of the Merchant Adventurers in that Trade can tell you by woful experience And therefore young Men do wisely in not binding themselves to them in Health and Sickness for then they are not only useless but chargeable not till death them do part but till their Misses beauties does decay or their Passion change for Miss-Love must still be Passionate because it ceaseth to be Love when it ceaseth to be Passionate having no other motive to cherish and maintain it and therefore usually such Mens Love expires assoon as their Misses beauty breaks or may be sooner if he be taken with a more agreeable object for his present fancy and conveniency for though most of our young Gallants Love constantly yet few are constant in their Amours for tho they are still Loving 't is Women more than a Woman for considering they are only Constant to Inconstancy they can only keep the name of Constant Lovers as Rivers still keep the same Name tho they are never two Minutes the same Water they still running into the Sea as Springs are still running into them Indeed if young Gallants were bound to keep their Misses during life such an obligation would come so near to matrimonial bondage as our young Gallant on those terms would as little love and like a handsom young Miss as an ugly old Wife all confinements to our Sparks of the times being odious O what a brave World and pleasant Age do we live in when new setts of Misses are now grown modish marks of Greatness as numbers of Wives and Concubines were signs of Magnificence in Solomon's days which is the only thing I know our young Gallants imitate him in and their only grand reason for doing it is meerly because Christs holy Gospel forbids them doing it Really the Drunkards in S. Paul's days were a kind of sober Men to the Libertins of our Age for they knowing their deeds were evil and scandalous had so great a sense of modesty and shame tho not of sin as to cast a vail of darkness over them to hide themselves and their Debauchery from the sight of others which is implied by S. Paul's saying Those that are Drunken are Drunken in the Night but the Debauchees of our times so glory in their own unshamefulness as they expose their Persons and Vices I might have said Sins to the open Sun-shine and publick Assemblies and are so far from casting a vail either to cover their own shame or their Misses painted faces as many of our young Sparks nay others that are more than middle aged Sinners allow their Misses Coaches to themselves but with Coachmen in their own Livery for fear all might not know whose Misses they are and who keeps them to shew to the World that their vile impudence scorns all sober Mens censure as well as it defies the great Gods punishment This base species of mercenary Miss Love being grown as very common as themselves are who are as impudent in their Carriage as lewd in their Actions and really 't is now grown a disputable question which now abounds most in London Hackny Coaches or Hackny-Women Tradesmen or Trading-women Thus impudence is now become a kind of Staple Commodity in our Kingdom of Love it being now adays esteem'd a shameful meanness of Spirit in a young Gentleman to be out of countenance for keeping a Miss but grown no shame at all to keep one they being now looked upon but as marks of greatness and riches and signs of Youth health fashion and gaity but never in the least thought on to be the sad effects of sin shame folly and wickedness O strange change That sin should be thus supported by a customary impudence and vertue suppressed by a general Custom Thus the tolerated nay I might have said incouraging mode of acting this sin has taken away both the shame and conscience of committing it yet as very debauch'd as our Age is we ought not to cast our faults on it for there can be no time so bad as to render sins necessary for general Custom can never justifie particular faults since we might all live well if we did not spend our time ill for the will in

the Poet praise and the Players mony rather than to teach the hearers vertue And so of Romances what are they other than a pleasant ingenious mixture of fiction made up in a large Volume of extraordinary Adventures and witty well composed fancies rarely set out and richly adorn'd with pure smooth Romantick Language of strange things done and fierce love made by Knights Errants in the Air where the Lovers perform a thousand Miracles in Fights and single Combats killing Men without ever hurting them or so much as drawing their Sword towards it for all such relations are writ to the height of Invention no matter if it surpasses all possibility of performance for those niceties are needless in Romances and say all the fine things imaginable without speaking aword and follow their Mistrisses over many Kingdoms without so much as stirring one step after them so that I may truly enough say that a Romance is a Monster composed of great contrarieties and high falsities In short when you have once read over a Romance tho it be never so good and pleasant yet 't is but a kind of dull entertainment to read it a second time a Romance being like a Stratagem of War never to be used well but once And yet these Plays and Romances are so many in number and so highly in esteem with our vain young Ladies and fine Sparkish Gallants as among many of them they make it the main imployment of their Study and the Library of their Books except perhaps an old Practice of Piety of the family all mouldy through long keeping and never using being the great Treasury of their Wit and the chief subject of their Discourses Indeed the vain flashy Wit of Plays and Romances is but like sweet Flowers or a fine delightful Voice they can only for a little time recreate and refresh the Senses but can never benefit the Soul or satisfie the necessities of the Body which can never be fully fed either by the Ears or Eyes And as the light of the Sun tho it be of a most excellent general influence yet alone could produce nothing so a general Jeering wit of it self can never bring forth any thing to strengthen the judgment or improve the understanding because it will not make use of the good Guides of Vertue Prudence Sobriety and Piety to direct it on what Subject it may fall on on what occasion it should be imploy'd in and by what degrees and measures it ought to move with fitting considerations of the persons time and place and such Wits as will not observe these Rules their drolling Wit will work like new Wine in old Bottles which will be sure to burst and flie about to the prejudice of themselves as well as others And now if the vain Ladies will but give themselves the trouble to observe carefully one of these common pretenders to rallying wit for all jeering wits are but pretenders for if they had good wit they would never be jeerers you will find such a one chiefly made up of those four Elements in composition viz. Extravagancy and Dissimulation Cowardise and Indiscretion all which he practises to every point of the Compass guiding all his rambling talk by them which is commonly so rude and abusive as it causes all modest and vertuous persons to shun and detest the company and acquaintance for the hearts and tongues of such Men like ill Neighbours hardly ever meet in Unity and Communion one with another they living in their bodies as their eyes do in their heads which tho still very near yet never see one another in short your Jeerers commonly want justice and consideration either to speak what they think or to think of what they speak shooting their words at meer random and so will be sure to have their share in the Proverb That a fools bolt is soon shot for their Tongue can only abuse themselves not others They hate a quiet setled Life being never at rest but whilst they are rambling from one Company to another and never so well as when in motion like some froward Infants that are never at quiet longer than they are Rock'd in the Cradle and assoon as that is at rest they are not And now I have nam'd a Cradle I cannot but fancy that many of these ignorant pretenders to wit got a knock in their Cradle which has hindered their Brains and consequently their Tongues from being well setled ever since And as one may rationally enough conclude of the common Habit and Dress of a Nation by only seeing one just come out of it that lived long in it so I fancy I may here venture to make a short description of the common nature of most of these drolling abusive Wits by here making a Just representation and giving you a true Picture of one of them tho in little A common publick pretender to Jeer and abuse others with his rallying Wit is usually one who makes it his great delight and chief business to inquire and prie into others Mens words and actions and to make his venomous Reflections on them he only passing through their Discourses as a Spie does an Enemies Country with a mischievous design to observe and return Intelligence of the defects and weakness in it and then to be sure to attack those weaker parts with his sharp abuses for if a Man has never so many vertues and has but one vice he will be sure to skip them all to fall foul on that one as flies leave the whole body to fasten on the least gawl'd patch for such abusive Wits are like Surgeons who live by others hurts and have nothing to do with those parts that are sound A censorious scoffing Wit is ordinarily composed and made up of such a kind of Stuff as Fire-ships are which serve for no other use and are built and kept for no other purpose than to do mischief the only good in them consists in doing harm so the spirit and quintessence of these Mens ill temper'd venom lies chiefly in abusiveness turning all their Notes to the same Tune that the Philistins did Samsons words only to raise and spend their mirth on though to the prejudice of their dearest Friends and nearest Relations which they had rather lose than their Jest A common Talkative raillier ought by his Trade to be so couragiously stout or rather fool hardy as not to fear jeering every one and yet indeed the Generality of them are so tame and Cowardly for a generous mind scorns such a base and mean imployment as to endure as he well deserves the slights and contempts of all he plays upon for tho he makes War against the whole Kingdom with his Tongue yet he dares not fight with one Man in it with his Sword and indeed for this he may well pretend some reason which I am sure he cannot for Jeering all Men first because a Sword is much sharper and can wound far deeper than his Tongue and next if he should