Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	act_n	law_n	person_n	888	5	5.3222	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64608	Logopandecteision, or, An introdvction to the vniversal langvage digested into these six several books, Neaudethaumata, Chrestasbeia, Cleronomaporia, Chryseomystes, Nelcadicastes, & Philoponauxesis / by Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie ...	Urquhart, Thomas, Sir, 1611-1660.	1653 (1653)	Wing U137; ESTC R3669	114,144	164

master perhaps being lulled all this while in a dull lethargy of ease awaketh not Like the Angell Apollyon in the eleventh of the Apocalypse intituled Abadon but to the destruction of some one or other of his paper-fetterd slaves proving such a bad one indeed to whom he hath concredited his goods that he never abandoneth them till his covetousness making that the fertilest thing of any which of it self is most unfruitful have in the unconscionable multiplying of such a graceless generation reared up that unhallowed result from a spark as it were in a corner of their houses to the hight of a most prodigious flame to consume them their wives and children with their whole estates and fortunes for ever 10. Yet seeing the rigour of the Law of Scotland seems rather as the times have been this while past to favour and abett the unmercifull creditor then the debtors innocent successor I have till this hour although not without some inward reluctancy chosen rather to undergoe the sternness and austerity thereof then legislatively to supplicate the eversion of an established custom 11. Albeit what ever Lawyers say I be sure that Law as it is conform to equity and justice requireth as well if not more that there be antidots and preservative remedies for mens estates in Lands as for the fortunes of them whose stock is onely in money 12. Especially in the behalf of those whom to deprive of their old possessions as is glanced at a little in the sixtie eight Article of the second Book would ingulph and bury in forgetfulness that antiquity of Line which all the riches on earth is not able to purchase and consequently making nobility stoop to coyn and vertue to gain bring the only support and props of honour to serve as fewel to the unquenchable fire of avaritious hearts 13. And I may very well say seeing it cohaeres with the purpose in hand that I sustain a greater prejudice in being debarred from my Lands which were more then two and twenty hundred years agoe acquired by the valour and prudence of my Predecessors then the Sons of the aforesaid Creditors can doe by the want of the money pretended to be due to them for my Fathers debt the overthrow of a worthy Family being more deplorable then the missing of what a Thiefe may filch out of a clout and have reaped as little benefit of the summes so lent as the brats they are as yet to beget have done of the Revenues which should be mine 14. What forcible Statutes have been published in former ages for obviating the decay of honorable houses is not unknown to those that are any thing versed in the historie of prudential Law 15. In this the ablest and most judicious men on earth have imployed the best of their wits and Solon that famous Legislator amongst the Athenians and wisest man then living made acts so favourable for the preservation of antient Families and so strictly to be observed that the controveners of them so long as the splendor of that Republick lasted were by the Arcopagits most exemplarily and condignely punished as the reliques of the Attick Laws till this day will sufficiently bear record 16. Nor was this so conscientious an ordonance so totally proper to the Common-weal of the Greeks but that the remanent of the world in those happy times of old did tast of the wholesome influence and goodness of it 17. The Decemvirs amongst the Romans instituted and ordained that those who were apt by their mis-government and reckless conduct to endanger the undoing and subversion of their predecessors house to the apparent detriment and damage for ever of such as by nature were designed to succeed after them in that family should be disabled from disponing Lands alienating any whatsoever goods and contracting debts in such sort that whosoever should meddle or deal with them in either of those kinds should do it at their owne hazard and perill without hope of restitution of any loss or hinderance they might sustain thereby as manifestly may be seen by the Law Julianus in the paragraph de cura Furiosorum and in the Law is cui bonus in the paragraph de verbis obligatoriis 18. Which being conform to that other Law of the twelve tables whereby such like inconsiderate persons were appointed to have surveyers and controulers set over them and wholy prohibited and interdicted from all manner of managing their own affairs as the words of the Text it self more succinctly declares Quando bona tua paterna avitaque negligentia tua disperdis Liberosque tuos ad egestatem perducis ob eam rem tibi ea re commercioque interdico 19. It is apparent how hainous horrid and sacrilegious an offence it seemed to be in those happy dayes to have a hand in pulling down the monuments of their fore-fathers vertue and demantling the honour of their house by dilapidating their estate 20. And least these premised acts should be thought to have been but good Laws ill obeyed and worse executed such rigorous punishment was inflicted upon the delinqents in them that no person guilty of what age or condition soever was spared 21. As may be instructed by Quintus Fabius son to Quintus Fabius the great surnamed Allobrogicus who by an edict of Quintus Pompeius Praetor was curbed and inhibited from doing by his misguiding and unadvised cariage any harm or prejudice to the house of his progenitors 22. And by that prodigal Senator of threescore yeares of age otherways wise enough over whom the Emperour Tiberius did constitute and impose a tutor or governour that to the impoverishing of his issue he might not have power to lavish away the estate he never acquired 23. The causes which moved them to inact and publish those Statutes being no lesse urgent now then they were then should as I conceive it astrict and oblige us to be every whit as zealously fervent as they in the observing of them 24. Chiefly being warranted thereto by the sacred Scripture it self in the old Testament whereof the people of Israel is said to have been enjoyned to marry in their own Tribes Jubilees appointed and all debts whatsoever after the revolution and expired date of so many years ordained to be discharged annulled freely acquit all bonds and bills rescinded and cancelled and all this only for the preservation of ancient houses 25. Of which the countrie of Scotland also till within these fourscore ten yeares was so exactly carefull that Signior David one of Queen Martes prime Courtiers could not for all the mony he was master of obtain in that whole dominion the purchase of one hundred pounds sterlin of rent in Land whereby to acquire the benefit of a Scotish title the more to ingratiat himself being an Italian in the favour of the Nation so unwilling in those good days was every one to break upon any parcel of their predecessors inheritance 26. Seeing thus it is then that all Nations

and thundring upon me charges as unwelcom to any generous Spirit as is the touch of an Ibis Penne to a Crocodile have so fretted galled and pricked me to the very Soul that all the Faculties thereof have by them been this great while most pitilesly and atrociously inslaved and incarcerated in the comfortless dump of searching for wherewith to close their yawning mouths and stop their gaping 19. For truly I may say that above ten thousand severall times I have by those Flagitators been interrupted for money which never came to my use directly or indirectly one way or other at home or abroad any one time whereof I was busied about Speculations of greater consequence then all that they were worth in the world from which had not I been violently pluck'd away by their importunity I would have emitted to publick view above five hundred several Treatises on inventions never hitherto thought upon by any 20. But as a certain Shepheard on a time according to the Epimythist would have perswaded the Fox not to destroy his flock till he had got their fleeces the wool whereof was to be employed in Cloth for the royal Robes of the Soveraign of the Land unto whom the Fox replied That his main interest being to fatten himself and his cubbs he did not find himself so much concerned in either Soveraign or Subject that upon any such pretext how specious soever he would leave his terrier unmagazined of all manner of provision competent for his vulpecularie family 21. Even so may I avouch that the nature of the most part of this strange kind of Flagitators being without any consideration or regard to the condition of a Gentleman or whether the improvement or impairing of his Fortunes should further or retard the progress of the Countries Fame totally to employ themselves in a coin-accumulating way towards the multiplying of their trash and heedful accrescing of the Mammon drosse wherein their Lucre-hailing minds and consopiated Spirits lie intombed and imburyed 22. For again as the old Hyena of Quinzie as it is reported in some Outlandish stories after he had seized upon the sublimest witted Gymnosophist of that Age on purpose to feed upon him being a Hungred did vilifie and misregard the tears and sorrow justly shed and conceived by the Inhabitants of that populous and magnificent City for the apparent loss of such unparallelled wisdom and exquisite Learning as through the death of so prime a Philosopher was like for ever to redound to the whole Empire of China and altogether postposing them to the satisfying of his base appetite with one poor meal of meat and that only in a sorry breakfast he was to take out of his bowels killed him tore him in peeces and greedily snatched up that repast the better to dispose his stomach within three houres thereafter for another of the like nature 23. Just so amongst many of my Fathers Creditors hath there bin a generation of such tenacious Publicans that cared so little what the Countrey in general might be concerned in any mans private interest though much by some singular good friends of mine hath been spoke to them in my own particular that through their Cruelty and extreme hard usage I have beene often necessitated to supply out of my Brains what was deficient in my Purse and provide from a far what should have been afforded at home one half tearms Interest although but of a Pettie and trivial Summe being in their eyes of more esteem then the Quintessence of all the Liberal Arts together with that of the Moral Vertues epitomized in the person of any though imbellished to the Boot with all other accomplishments whatsoever for discategorically in despight of all order by marshalling quality after habere they have still preferred the possession of a little Lumber and baggagely Pelf to all the Choicest perfections of both body and mind 24. And indeed to speak ingenuously as the Sparrow whom a late Archbishop of Canterbury weeped to see as often forced to fall back as it strove to flye upwards by reason of a little Peeble stone fast at the end of a string that was tyed to her foot the contemplatively devout Prelate thereby considering that the sincerest minds even of the most faithfull are oftentimes impedited from soaring to their intended height because of the clog of worldly incumbrances which depresseth them 25. Even so may it be said of my self that when I was most seriously imbusied about the raising of my own and Countries reputation to the supremest reach of my endeavours then did my Fathers Creditors like so many milstones hanging at my heels pull down the vigour of my Fancie and violently hold at under what other wayes would have ascended above the sublimest regions of Vulgar conception 26. Thus I being as another Andromeda chained to the Rock of hard usage and in the view of all my Compatriots exposed to the merciless Dragon Usurie I most humbly beseech the Soveraign Authority of the Countrey like another Perseus mounted on the winged Pegasus of Respect to the weal and honour thereof to releeve me by their power from the eminent danger of the jaws of so wild a monster 27. Which maketh the very meanest and most frivolous summe of any like the Giant Ephialtes who grew nine Inches every moneth immensely to ●pread forth its exuberant members without any other sustenance or nourishment then the meer invisible Flux of time that starveth all things else untill it extend it self at last to a mighty huge Colossus of Debt able like that of the Rhodes to take fastning upon two territories at once 28. And in recompence of a so illustrious and magnificent action unto the State of this Land as fittest patron for such a present will I tender some of the aforesaid moveables whose value I doe warrantably make account to be of no less extent then in the estimation of all the Universities of both Nations other pregnant Spirits of approved Literature shall centuplate the worth of the whole money that for debt can be asked by those Creditors out of the profoundest exorbitancy of their Covetousness 29. By my appealing thus to a Judicatorie conflated of the prime lights of the Isle and who as all wise men else do more magnifie and extoll the endowments of the mind then those of either body or fortune it is very perceptible unto which of these three branches of good this offer of mine is to be reduced 30. No man will deny that is not destitute of common sense but that Scotus and Sacrobosco brought more reputation to Scotland by their learned writings then if they had enriched it with Gallioons loaded full of gold and that it had been better for that Nation to have lost many millions of Angels then that through penurie or any other accident the workes of those Gallant men had been buried in Oblivion 31. For as in both body