Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	force_n	iron_n	loadstone_n	832	5	13.7270	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51723	Considerations upon the lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus by Marques Virgilio Malvezzi, one of the supreme councell of warre, to his Catholick Majestie ; dedicated to the King, his master ; englished by Robert Gentilis, gent.; Considerationi con occasione d'alcuni luoghi delle vite d'Alcibiade et di Coriolano. English	Malvezzi, Virgilio, marchese, 1595-1653.; Gentilis, Robert.	1650 (1650)	Wing M356; ESTC R12183	129,318	301

the passing from dangers to secureness You will find wrath hatred envy desire of domination to be most weake passions if you compare them with feare This Chimericall passion is of greater force then those reall ones if we will beleeve an eminent Polititian Many and true provocations saith he had Otho to adventure himself to obtain the Empire Desire of domination a riot even burthensome to a Prince Poverty scarce to be tolerated by a private man Anger and hatred towards Galba Envy against Piso He feigned but one only of these passions to make him the more to affect it and that was Feare What makes Tyranny so pleasing but the love of danger Where it is great he can desire no more where it is but small he encreases it where there is none he feigns it Yet the tragick scene of these men is full of bloud unjustly spilt sometimes of guilty sometimes of half guilty and sometimes of innocent men I should say only of innocent for the greatest fault that Tyrants punish deserves the the name of the greatest innocency But if if this man be not yet grown so inhumane as to feign a fear where there is none yet he seldome reserves so much humanity as not to grudge and bemoane himself because there is none Tiberius comes into the Senate house he finds all the Senators to second his thoughts and flattter his actions No body Contradicts him no man provokes him He goes forth angry and enraged Calls them base men prepared for slavery He was troubled and molested saith the Author with such base servility he was ashamed said I of having caused it He was sorry I now say that he had lost that feare which was the Seminarie of his delights Plato and Tacitus also knew peradventure that to be true which I said though they did not explaine it They call a Tyrant unhappy not by reason of any outward feare which he with pleasure and delight satisfies by the death of sometimes one sometimes another Citizen But by reason of the inward feare which insensibly gnawing his entrailes lets him neither find rest nor hope for remedy If the griefe and paine of this did not counterpoise yea go beyond the pleasure and delight of the other we should amongst the Pagans reckon more Tyrants than Princes There is a Character imprinted in mans Nature by God which we call Conscience to the end that even who those may feare him who not know him Contenting himself rather with not being known then not feared to the end that the world should not be lost for want of feare nor men arrive to the extreme of wickednesse Alcibiades becomes Socrates his Scholar He addicts himself with much fervency to the learning of Sciences and with as much eagerness follows vices He studied greatness more then goodness to counterpoise not to forgoe his defects going forwards in acquiring vertue as a means to satisfie his ambition Which he cannot attain to by being admired by the lesser number namely the wise if at the same time he be abhorred by the greater number which are the ignorant He would be like the bad because many and because he would not become an enemy to many for not being like them He had his intent with reproach whereas he might have had it with commendation if he had outwardly habited himself with the vulgars qualities which are not vices and inwardly with wise mens that are vertues This had joyned in him those two so contrary elements the wise and ignorant in the same manner as the aire linkes the elements of fire and water together He that will gain a man let him not be his adversary or at the least let him not shew himselfe to be so for otherwise he will flye him If he cannot make himself semblable let him feign to be so if he means to be followed Resemblance is of great vertue every one celebrates it and peradventure none understand it The like doth not attract the like because it is the like but because the similitude is joyned with superiority otherwise iron might draw iron and if by vertue of resemblance it should receive force from the loadstone it also might do it He is deceived in Physick that thinks Rhubarb draws bilious humours because it hath a resemblance to them ●he resemblance causeth it to find no resistance but the superiority draws In Musick the unison which meerly resembleth is disliked and rejected as dissonant and the eight is admitted and approved as harmonious it adding nothing to the resemblance but superiority In policy to be of one and the same Province of the same Language and custome if there be no superiority brings forth a Republick or Common-wealth if there be a superiority it produces a Principality The Tribe of Iuda sees David grown great they say he is their brother and follow him he was so before and yet no man stirred He that thinks love to grow from resemblance what reason can he give for its being seldome enterchangeable being it should alwaies be so unless superiority added unto it perswade the enterchange This instinct of similitude either of suffering ones self to be drawn or of voluntarily following superiority often proceed from a desire of advancing to a greater perfection or of preserving that degree which one hath received from it for which purpose the resembling eminent is held a more fit Instrument then any other So the coldnesse of the earth which is not entire is preserved by that of the water which is ful●y perfect the humidity of the water by that of the aire the heate of the aire by that of the fire and all thes● by the virtuall qualities of the heaven which the inferiour ones eminently containe Alcibiades invited with other Nobles by Nicetus to sup●er contemnes the invitation He makes himselfe drunke at home th●n go●s to his friends house takes away the one halfe of his pla●e and without any more adoe returnes to his owne ho●se The guests wonder at Alcibiades insolency and admi●e Nicetus patience He answers that he ought to thanke him fo● that part which he had left him All troubles have their comforts and many poisons their antidotes He that instead of eating the vipers back eats its head and taile will not be cured he that with an ill looke lookes upon trouble when he might doe it with a good one will not be comforted One that were in love as Nicetus was with him that causeth the trouble would take an occasion to thanke him for it and he that hath been so hath done it Man doth not looke upon troubles with a good countenance because he contents not himselfe to come out of trouble at even hand by onely remaining comforted He is desirous to gaine sometimes compassion and with a female weakness makes moane sometimes repute and esteem and with a manly courage endures it This last though for the most part he shew a good countenance and the other see it yet will he not seeme to others