Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	fortitude_n	justice_n	temperance_n	2,097	5	10.3230	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67614	Effigies amoris in English, or, The picture of love unveil'd; Amoris effigies. English. 1682	Waring, Robert, 1614-1658.; Phil-icon-erus.	1682 (1682)	Wing W865; ESTC R38066	55,822	148

his gifts yet afterwards it values the gifts for the Authour whose parental indulgence extended it self beyond the partition-wall of his own family and adopted a stranger with the same domestick affection as an Allie into his Hospitable bosom Here overloaded gratitude faints and finding it self uncapable of returning any thing besides the man repays its Patron as a Deity with the bare Votary And truly in my opinion he betraies no such generous ardour of mind who returns benefits as Debts and pays gifts that he may quit scores and that accounts may be kept even on both sides as if they were dealing only in a more liberal way of usury 'T is not affection but pride which makes a man so impatient of lying under an obligation This is not to receive but retort kindnesses This is with more disdain than gratitude to boast riches in a contention of munificence But since true benefits aim at nothing but a kind reception he only knows how to be a liberal receiver who candidly interprets and retaliates nothing but a grateful mind Neither does he think this any valuable return of his own liberality but only the pledge of anothers But lest any one should think I insinuate this as an Apology for my incapacity or ingratitude let him know that I have perswaded my self that friends give with that Candor as if they paid only that they might owe and return gifts with such freedom as those that give of their own accord These are benefits these are those Arrows of Cupid which with a Benefits are the arrows of Cupid arm'd with gold Golden point give a Splendid but faithful wound More powerful truly is the Courtship of Jupiter under gold than under feathers or the Rays of his Divinity For gifts are the universal Character whereas 't is the Talent only of some few to understand the Idiom of Majesty and the soothing flourish of a Rhetorical Pen. Shall I now say that from this gentle From liberality arises commiseration which softens he breast and then signs it with an Image humanity of mind proceeds a good natur'd Commiseration which softens the breast like Wax and then seals it with any Image Or that from this ampleness of mind flows that proud benignity which while it seeks occasion to exercise munificence Loves the miserable even to Passion and scorns the happy Or shall I think that from hence arises a generous Stateliness which is more ambitious of bow'd knees and heads than Embraces and Loves only on this Magnificent condition that it be not Lov'd again Or rather shall I term this a soft modesty like to theirs who can endure to eye another till he look back upon them And now we confess with thee Beauty is rank'd among the Vertues which holds forth an animated system of Ethicks and expresses in the body ●Il the Vertues prudence fortitude justice and temperance Plato the divinest of all Prophets a wonderful scene of Love display'd throughout the whole body where Vertue exposes herself to view where the Candor of the mind tempers the blood with a milky whiteness and modesty dies the Cheek with a sweet Vermilion where the liberal forehead hospitably entertains the beholders and the glances of the eye are gather'd up like scatter'd gems where you may perceive the discipline of a composed countenance gravely checking and allaying those sparks which it kindled in you by its Beauty Where you may observe the dictates of a quick apprehending aspect and imbibe tacit lessons of prudence where you may see regularly disposed by a certain ballance of justice the even measures as of manners so of the limbs and peruse a living system of Ethicks with your Hence 't is call'd a Corporeal Vertue eyes where when you shall behold the lucid members joynted to one another like gems both for Ornament and service wondring a while at the compacted strength of solid Beauty you will cry out Hither Vulcan with thy nets behold we have taken again Mars accompanying Venus This is a Beauty worth the Empire of more than one world Thanks be to Jupiter and his Eagle that the earth is not envy'd the possession of so great Beauty Hence the Divine Plato may with rapture and ecstasie deduce Theorems of Philosophy and contemplate a fairer Idea with his eyes than ever he did with his mind Socrates may send his delicate youth to trim themselves at the superlative lustre of this face as at a looking-glass And here Eudoxus fall'n from his admiration of the Sun may affirm mankind was made on purpose to view this light and to feast on bright pleasures though to the loss of their eyes There are more powerful Charms in the aspect of this form than in Orpheus his lyre to tame wild beasts and Philosophers This Splendor more delightsome than day-light is fitter than the Sun to try and educate the off-spring not of Eagles only but of mankind too I would almost swear that our souls descended from the Skie as falling Stars they are so inamour'd with all Brightness These are the Arrows of Cupid pointed with the light of eyes and sparkling out flames which shine burn and wound Thus whatsoever is excellent All Love is comprehended in likeness whatsoever we would be like to attracts us to it self with the same ardour as we do those things which we seem Where fore we all Love either whom we would be like to or whom we are From the former arise those spurs of a tasted Love from the latter first similitude it self already to resemble We mutually crave and give Pardon to this madness of ours which makes us do the same when men as when children viz. to reach out to kiss our Pictures in Looking-glasses 'T is the Fate of all mankind as well as of Narcissus to be Passionately in Love with their own representations And 't is but just that we more zealously affect our other self than our Parents or Children who are but pieces of our selves or than an Artificer does his own work which is only the product and Image of his art 'T is an excusable greediness which prompts us to feed upon our like since 't is the nature of our souls as well as bodies to require consimilar aliment Wherefore I don't wonder at the Then Custom bewitching power of Custom which recommends to our affections not only faces but places themselves and inanimate trifles as if they were our Companions Whence the same delay which insensibly preys upon Beauty adds also grace to deformity For the eye and mind tinctured with a familiar species see no longer but through painted glass which takes off from the horror of the object So also familiarity without Then familiarity which we are remote even when present adds this force to custom that it may form Twin manners by a reciprocal generation beget a Consanguinity of dispositions and adapt mind to mind till anothers conversation is more sweet and free to us than our own

both but they are more liberal who bestow the man than they who bestow the goods The Origin of friendship proceeds in the same order as that of Kingdoms to cherish and defend you turn over both the leaves not so much of fortune as of nature and benevolence But you should confess them Superior and more liberal who bestow the man than those who with a cheap munificence permit an effusion of their goods So that either way the fire of Love does more willingly descend than ascend Nay this Passion always descends since 't is the part of the more excellent and Noble to Love and in a prone chanel is propagated through the degrees of alliance as man himself is For there is the same method and procedure in the growth of friendship as in the constitution of Kingdoms The heat first passing through the chanels of the blood creeps out of its own private enclosure into families then the vein bursting as it were with an eager fermentation it expatiates farther to Allies and Fellow-Citizens For we must return to them lest we should seem to be more concern'd for the Dignity of Love than for truth or be liable to blame for instituting other measures of loving than what are popularly receiv'd and for steering right against the stream who propose us to our selves as patterns yea and causes of Love For this is the merit of benevolence earnestly to wish well to ones self This is the very design of a Lover to recover himself lost in another to cherish himself with the kindly heat and by a certain vital energy to convert all into his own nourishment So that 't is no wonder that Vertue which enjoyns a neglect of our selves suffers her self a greater disregard from the world However let us not think it shame to be belov'd as if this were to be mock'd and neglected under the pretence of Officiousness You must know that every one Loves ill but he that Loves himself and that none in Loving themselves design their own advantage although by Loving they profit themselves by accident All Self-Love therefore Self-love is a generous thing by which we ardently affect whatever we are or would be is a generous thing by which we kindly affect whatever we are or would be as what is or what should be allyed to us All of us are so touch'd with that ambition of some who insert the Armes and honours of their Ancestors among their own titles that by a corruption of Herauldry we adopt whatever is excellent into the Table of our own kindred So the emulous Cities contended about the praises of Homer in an unreconcileable War as if for the inlargement of their Territories Hence the splendor of vertue which is the chiefest security of Mortals next of self-love kindles those of taking dispositions at the first flash and that which adores the Deity is adored it self Whose power is such that there is none of so desperate impiety who is not in his wish and approbation I had almost said mind too good Who would not he had exercised that Vertue which as yet he does not and who does not heartily Embrace that Vertue in another which he does ill away with in himself Whither does this first impulse not From this double impulse of nature and reason the first impulse of reason carries us to what we would be Hence the first causes of Love are Vertue and its shadows with whatsoever carries the semblance of it of nature only but reason carry us cheated with a voluntary imposture we fall prostrate before not only Vertue but any thing which bears the least shadow or appearance of it Sometimes that difficulty which guards the path of Vertue with a Sacred horrour and keeps off the profane rabble pushes us forward and intices with its indearing injuries The honey of Lips gains a more exquisite rellish from the interposals of stings To watch at the Window of a Mistress to suffer a repulse from a meaner Rival or to be disrespectfully used are all but spurs to future pleasure like as squeezing the hand and wounding the Lip with the eager rudeness of a biting kiss Sometimes rarity which through the sloth of the age seems almost peculiar to vertue recommends Monsters to our fancy and all outlandish deformity 'T is well known also how prevalent are those allurements of Lovers which are rank'd among the chiefest shadows of Vertues praises which are dearer to women than their looking-glass or box of perfumes with which as with incense men as well as Gods are appeas'd How easy is it by this art to please both our selves and others How easie is it by these pretious blandishments to please the most Chast Matron For all even the most modest love to be commended and those who refuse to be lov'd are yet ambitious of appearing lovely Both are arguments of a mind vertuously disposed though to praise be a more certain one than to be prais'd For to be prais'd is frequently the lot always the ambition of the most undeserving as deformed persons covet paint But none can praise and himself not be laudable He does the same or would do who approves and is illustrated from the excellencies of another As he that erects a Statue to the memory of an Heroe erects also at the same time to himself a Monument of Vertue For this seems an high flight of merit not to exercise vertues but what 's more to reverence and adore them These are those darts of Cupid which are pointed with his feathers which while they tickle wound the deeper and like Arrows deliver'd strongly and at a distance reach those who are most remov'd from us But to make flattering preambles and bribe Benevolence the usual art of Rhetoricians and Lovers seems all one to me as to dawb the lips with paint preparatively to an Embrace which always instils a sweet Poyson and insensibly corrodes the kisses So much are we men the Creatures of glory and Vertue that I fear Among vertues these more profitable ones cause Love 't would not be much for our honour to confess that among Vertues we Embrace them most which are profitable Whether they be those which exercise and invite humanity as modesty and equity or those which preside over and protect it as fortitude and munificence Which when we our selves are no way advantaged by them we gratulate in the behalf of others But as Emulation so munificence indears our affections to other vertues Although its excellence be so much the greater by how much the receiver is less deserving Because then the kindness is wholely to be ascribed not to the judgment but favour of the Benefactor and because for our sakes he would run the hazard of being reproachfully beneficial This liberaliby is no sooner above the Horizon but that other which is inbred in the heart of mankind shines parallel to it And although perhaps at first by an erroneous estimation it valued the giver for the sake of