Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	work_n	world_n	write_n	68	3	8.5305	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33864	A collection of select discourses out of the most eminent wits of France and Italy	Sarasin, Jean-François, 1614-1654. Conspiration de Walstein. English.; Voiture, Monsieur de (Vincent), 1597-1648. Histoire d'Alcidalis et de Zelide. English.; Mascardi, Agostino, 1591-1640. Congiura del conte Gio. Luigi de Fiéschi. English.; Pellisson-Fontanier, Paul, 1624-1693. Discours sur les oeuvres de M. Sarasin. English.	1678 (1678)	Wing C5191; ESTC R13475	160,025	256

Now these revolutions as those of Commonwealths are made by means of some reigning Wit elevated above the rest who not contented with the present state of things finds out a new way to greatness and glory But as soon as one of these extraordinary Wits appear we see two other sorts which set out also the first who have nothing good but a Wit to do well follow the track but afar off and are only shadows and vain images imitating him to little purpose forgetting that there is no vertue but hath two vices attending it nor elevation which is not environ'd with precipices The other doth not 't is true take a contrary way for then they should oppose the gust of the Age which greedily embraces the novelty and perhaps they should oppose their own Inclination which had carried them to the same thing if they had not been prevented but going the same way they open different paths make new discoveries sometimes they overtake sometimes they pass him that was before them and if they do nor the one nor the other they make a different Character that hath its price and its proper value 'T would be easie for me to justifie what I have said by Examples of most Nations if that tediousness which without doubt hath wearied my Reader had not wearied me too To come then to our particular Subject French Poetry was gay and fooling in the time of Marot and Melin and though since it hath sometimes appear'd with the same face yet Ronsard Bellay Perron more grave and serious had refin'd it and our Muses began to be as severe as the Philosopher of Antiquity who never was seen to laugh Voiture who can refuse him this praise comes next with a Wit gallant and delicate a Melancholy sweet and ingenious he call'd to mind the liberty of our Ancient Poetry and had before his eyes that of the Italians and the most polite Roman and Greek Authors of all these together not following any he compos'd a kind of Writing which charms no less by its graces than by its novelty What should M. Sarasin do who came into the World a little after him if his inclination had led him from this kind of writing I assure my self he would have forc'd it to accommodate with the time but I think the contrary and that he gave thanks to Fortune for being born in an Age whose taste was so conform to his own and which 't was so easie for him to satisfie He began then to write in this free style and finding himself rich in his own Inventions no more imitated Voiture than Voiture did Marott Now it these ingenious and learned persons will confound these two so different manners of Writing they wrong themselves and should leave it to weak and obscure sights to make no distinction between things that only have some resemblance Take a man altogether ignorant he will put all the Poets in the World in one rank from Virgil to the makers of Acrosticks Give him a little light and he will distinguish between Heroick-Poem Satyre Epigram and Elegy but will not be able to make any difference between Statius and Virgil Plautus and Terence Juvenel and Horace Martial and Catullus and for Ovid Tibullus and Propertius he will not suspect 't is possible to distinguish their Genius and Character On the contrary he that hath an exquisite taste and an exact knowledge of good Authors will not only distinguish the Characters of these several Writers but as all things have their abuse and excess he will sin on the other hand and mistrust the testimony of Books and Manuscripts and finding in Works of the same Author some light difference of Style he will attribute them to divers Authors without considering that a man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from another man If our Nation and our Age cannot produce in every kind more than one man for our admiration if Voiture hath left nothing for others to do unhappy they that follow him let them renounce Poetry why should they engage in a business wherein there is no more Honour to pretend to but let us not so cruelly discourage so many brave persons that run the same career I know some and how many are there which I know not whose Writings though in the same kind will pass one day I believe for Originals and not for Copies One with the Spirit of the World and of the Court will have something of fine subtle labour'd turn'd united another will inspire his works with the Spirit of Love and some tender and delicate passion not to be found elsewhere a third tho Sportingly will have the art to strow his Writings with the most excellent Morality and who can recount the several Characters which are now to be found or may appear hereafter in these things seeing that from the divers mixture of these qualities as from so many Elements an infinity of forms and different species may arise Let us try if we can clear this by a Comparison There is something happens like this in all good Arts there is no one of them which hath not been cultivated by a certain number of excellent men some have gone before others have followed and every one hath contributed something of his own to the perfection of the Art so that we do not find the entire Art in one but in all taken together Let us consider the progress of Painting which hath so much affinity with Poetry Amongst the Illustrious Painters of Greece Apollodorus was the most ancient but they said of him that he only open'd the Doors of the Art whereas Zeuxes was the first that enter'd by a more exact imitation of Nature After him follows that crowd of famous Painters Parasius Protogenes Pamphilus Aristedes Nichomachus and several others every one happy in certain things which Pliny hath so exactly and pleasantly describ'd one excell'd in Symmetry another in the Invention and design this was esteem'd for well representing the Hair and extremities of the body that for hitting the Passions and Inclinations of men another for admirably finishing his works and some for ending in a short time Appelles surpass'd every one for a certain inimitable grace which he bestow'd on all that past his hands but this Appelles this Great Appelles as eminent for his Wit as for his Pensil freely gave way to Amphion for order and to Asclepiodorus for heightnings and due observance of distances Let us on in this path for 't is all strow'd with flowers and we cannot go amiss though we are out of the way for we now discourse of those Painters whose Fame is fixt in books and whose Names had been efac'd as their Colours if the Works of Learned Pens did not last longer than those of the best Pencils Raphael being the Disciple of Pietro Perugino at first followed his Master by an imitation exact and labour'd as they say but dry and imitated his manner so precisely that what the one