Whilft we desertless fools must patience feign,
And praise ourselves, if any praise we'll gain.

242.244. PRAYER.

We, ignorant of ourselves,

Crown's Calisto.

Beg often our own harms; which the wise pow'rs
Deny us for our good; fo find we profit

By lofing of our prayers.

Shakespear's Antony and Cleopatra.

That high all-feer, which I dallied with,
Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head,
And giv'n in earnest, what I begg'd in jeft.
Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men,

To turn their own points on their masters bosoms.

Shakespear's King Richard III.

Pray I cannot,
Though inclination be as sharp as will;
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent :
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heav'ns
To wash it white as snow? whereto serves mercy,
But to confront the visage of offence ?
And what's in prayer, but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? then I'll look up;
My fault is paft - But oh! what form of pray'r
Can serve my turn? forgive me my foul murther!
That cannot be, since I am still poffeft
Of those effects, for which I did the murther;
My crown, my own ambition, and my queen.
What then? what refts?

Try, what repentance can: what can it not ?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent ?
Oh wretched state! oh bosom, black as death!

Oh limed foul, that, ftruggling to be free,

Art So emboldens vex'd humanity; makes

Us complain. Those undifcern'd, immortal

Governors, are often in

Their bounty flow, in justice too severe;

And give not what we beg, but what we fear.

Sir W. Davenant's Platonick Lovers.

Can pray'rs to all alike so gentle be,

Since all the world's devotions dif gree?

None beg the same; the pray'rs of all the best,

Are little more than curses for the rest.

245. PREFERMENT

Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin.

When a noble nature's rais'd,

It brings friends joy, foes grief, posterity fame : In him the times, no less than prince, are prais'd; And by his rife, in active men, his name

Doth emulation ftir:

To the dull, a spur

It is to th' envious meant

A mere upbraiding grief, and tort'ring punishment.

Whoe'er is rais'd,

Johnson's Underwoods.

For worth he has not; he is tax'd, not prais'd.

Johnson's Epigrams.

Many such ends have fall'n on such proud honours;
No more because the men on whom they fell
Grew infolent, and left their virtue's ftate;
Than for their hugeness, that procur'd their hate:
And therefore little pomp in men most great,
Makes mightily and strongly to the guard
Of what they win by chance or just reward:
Great and immodeft braveries again,
Like statues, much too high made for their bases,
Are overturn'd as soon as giv'n their places.

Chapman's Revenge of Buffy D'ambois.

There is a deep nick in time's restless wheel
For each man's good; when which nick comes, it

strikes :

As

As rhetorick, yet works not perfuafion,
But only is a mean to make it work;
So no man riseth by his real merit,
But when it cries clink to his raiser's spirit.
Many will fay, that cannot rise at all,
Man's first hour's rise is first step to his fall :
I'll venture that; men that fall low must die,
As well as men cast headlong from the sky.

Chapman's Buffy D'ambois.

For when that men of merit grow ungrac'd,
And by her fautors, ignorance held in,
And parafites in good mens rooms are plac'd,
Only to footh the highest in their fin;
From those whose skill and knowledge is debas'd,
There many strange enormities begin.

Drayton's Barons Wars.

Others that stemm'd the current of the time,
Whence I had fall'n, strove suddenly to climb.
Like the camelion, whilst time turns the hue,
And with false Proteus puts on sundry shapes;
This change scarce gone, a second doth ensue;
One fill'd, another for promotion gapes :
Thus do they swarm like flies about the brim;
Some drown'd, and some do with much danger swim.
Drayton's Pierce Gaveston.

When knaves come to preferment, they rise as
Gallows are rais'd in the Low Countries, one
Upon another's shoulders.

Webster's White Devil.

For places in the court, are but like beds

In the hospital; where this man's head lies

At that man's foot, and so lower and lower.

If on the sudden he begins to rife;

No man that lives can count his enemies.

Webster's Duchess of Malfy.

Middleton's Trick to catch the Old One. 'T'is not advancement that I love alone;

'Tis love of shelter, to keep shame unknown.

Middleton's Mayor of Quinborough.

- All preferment

That springs from fin and lust shoots up quickly;

As gard'ners crops do in the rott'neft grounds :

So is all means rais'd from base prostitution,

Ev'n like a fallad growing upon a dunghill.

Middleton's Women beware Women.

He who cannot merit

Preferment by employments; let him bare
His throat unto the Turkish cruelty;

Or die or live a flave without redemption.

John Ford's Lady's Trial.

What throngs of great impediments besiege

The virtuous mind? So thick, they jostle

One another as they come. Hath vice a
Charter got, that none must rife, but fuch, who

Of the devil's faction are? The way to

Let the

Honour is not evermore the way to
Hell: A virtuous man may climb.
Flatterer fell his lies elsewhere; it is
Unthrifty merchandize to change my gold
For breath.

$.246.

Sir W. Davenant's Cruel Brother.

PRIDE.

So proud she shined in her princely state,
Looking to heav'n, for earth she did disdain;
And fitting high, for lowly she did hate.
Lo! underneath her scornful feet, was lain
A dreadfull dragon with a hideous train :
And in her hand she held a mirror bright,

Wherein her face she often viewed fain,
And in her felf-lov'd semblance took delight;
For she was wond'rous fair, as any living wight.

Of

✓Of grifly Pluto she the daughter was,

43

And fad Proserpina, the queen of hell; Yet did she think her peerless worth to pais That parentage, with pride so did the fwell: And thund'ring Jove that high in heav'n doch dwell,

And wield the world, she claimed for her fire;

Or if that any else did Jove excell;

For to the highest she did still aspire:
Or, if ought higher were than that, did it defire.
And proud Lucifera men did her call.-

Spenser's Fairy Queen.

He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is

His own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle;
And whatever praises itself but in

The deed, devours the deed in the praise.

Shakespear's Troilus and Cressida.

Pride hath no other glass

To shew itself, but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.

Let this example move th'insolent man,
Not to grow proud, and careless of the gods:
It is an odious wisdom to blafpheme,
Much more to flighten or deny their pow'rs.
For whom the morning saw so great and high;
Thus low, and little, 'fore the eve doth lie.

Ibid.

Johnson's Sejanus.

How blind is pride! What eagles are we still
In matters that belong to other men,
What beetles in our own?

Chapman's All Fools,

How poor a thing is pride! When all as slaves,

Differ but in their fetters, not their graves.

Daniel's Civil War.

Pride by presumption bred, when at a height,

Encount'ring with contempt, both march in ire;

And 'twixt 'em bring base cruelty to light;

The loathsome off-spring of a hated fire.

VOL. III.

E. of Sterline's Alexandrean Tragedy.

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