Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

36-iii. 1.

What's past, and what's to come, is strew'd with

Minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,

Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.

There's nothing serious in mortality:

All is but toys: renown, and grace, is dead.

280

Bad courses.

But by bad courses may be understood,

26-iv. 5.

23-ii. 4.

15-ii. 3.

That their events can never fall out good. 17-ii. 1.

Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast,

Led on by heaven, and crown'd with joy at last.

282

34-v. 3.

Riches cannot procure happiness for their possessors. The aged man that coffers up his gold,

Is plagued with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits;
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless barns the harvest of his wits;
Having no other pleasure of his gain,
But torment that it cannot cure his pain.
So then he hath it, when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his young;
Who in their pride do presently abuse it;
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.

The sweets we wish for turned to loathed sours,
Even in the moment that we call them ours.

283

The consequences of evil.

We bid ill be done,

Poems.

When evil deeds have their permissive pass,
And not the punishment.

5-i. 4.

Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

That will not be deep search'd with saucy looks;
Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save base authority from others' books.

Over-studiousness.

8-i. 1.

285

Universal plodding prisons up

The nimble spirits in the arteries;

As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.

8-iv. 3.

286 The effects of the want of judgment and taste.

When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, Understanding; it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.*

10-iii. 3.

287 Affections not felt are disbelieved or despised.
How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms!t

13-i. 2.

289

Sorrow distorts appearances.
Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which show like grief itself, but are not so:
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects;
Like perspectives,* which, rightly gazed upon,
Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry,
Distinguish form.

17-ii. 2. 290

Fortitude under aflictions.

Bid that welcome Which comes to punish us, and we punish it Seeming to bear it lightly.

30-iv. 12. 291

Adversity, the uses of. Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 10_ii. 1. 292

Rumour.

From Rumour's tongues They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.

19-Induction. 293

Time. Time. I,—that please some, try all; both joy, and

terror, Of good and bad ; that make, and unfold, error.

13-iv. Chorus. 294 Mankind different in exterior only. Are we not brothers ?

So man and man should be ; But clay and clay differs in dignity, Whose dust is both alike.

31-iv. 2.

295

Popularity. There have been many great men that have flattered the people, who never loved them; and there be many that they have loved, they know not wherefore : so that, if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better ground.

28-ii. 2. 296

Cruelty insecure. There is no sure foundation set in blood; No certain life achieved by others' death. 16-iv. 2.

297

Truth, beauty's ornament. O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth give ! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye, As the perfumed tincture of the roses ; Hang on such thorns, and play so wantonly, When summer's breath their masked buds discloses ; But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade; Die to themselves ; sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.

Poems. 298

Time.

The end crowns all ;
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.

26-iv. 5.

299

Justice due to Heaven.
If the great gods be just, they shall assist
The deeds of justest men.

30_ii. 1.

300

Station. To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in it, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully disaster the cheeks.* 30-ii. 7.

301

Judgment.
Heaven is above all; there sits a Judge,
That no king can corrupt.

25-iii. 1. 302

Hypocrisy.
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation, that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue.

5-ii. 2. 303 The danger of relying on our own strength. [Lie in the lap of sin,) and not mean harm? It is hypocrisy against the devil: They that mean virtuously, and yet do so, The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.*

37-iv. 1. 304

Pomp and power, their end. Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

23—v. 2. 305

Equality of human life. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots: Your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but variable service; two dishes, but to one table ; that's the end.

36-iv. 3. 306

Insinuations, painful. 'Tis better to be much abused, Than but to know't a little.

37-iii. 3.

a

307 The clearest sight without wisdom, blindness.

What an infinite mock is this, that a man should have the best use of eyes, to see the way of blindness!

31-V. 4. A guilty conscience.

Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles : Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.

308