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1. We'll speak of love no more.
2. Nay, if you will, you may,
'Tis but in jeft; and yet so children play
With fiery flames, and covet what is bright;
But feeling his effects, abhor the light.

Shakespear and Rowley's Birth of Merlin.
Not that I think, you did not love your father,
But that I know love is begun by time;
And that I fee in paffages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it:
There lives within the very flame of love,
A kind of wick, or fnuff, that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still:

For goodness growing to a pleurifie,
Dies in his own too much.

Shakespear's Hamlet.

Things bafe and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can tranfpofe to form and dignity:

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy hafte:
And therefore is love faid to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
As waggifh boys themfelves in game forfwear,
So the boy love is perjur'd ev'ry where.

Shakespear's Midfummer-Night's Dream.
She never told her love;

But let concealment, like a worm i'th' bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: the pin'd in thought,
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She fat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed?-
We men may say more, fwear more; but, indeed,
Our fhews are more than will: for ftill we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.

Shakespear's Twelfth Night.

I

I know, I love in vain; ftrive against hope;
Yet, in this captious and intenible fieve,
I ftill pour in the water of my love,
And lack not to lofe ftill: thus Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore

The fun that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more.

Shakespear's All's Well that ends Well.

Oh, how this spring of love refembleth
'Th' uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now fhews all the beauty of the fun,
And, by and by, a cloud takes all away!

Shakespear's two Gentlemen of Verona.
I Didft thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as foon go kindle fire with fnow,
As feek to quench the fire of love with words.
2. I do not feek to quench your love's hot fire,
But qualify the fire's extreamer rage;

Left it fhould burn above the bounds of reafon.
1. The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns:
The current, that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know'ft, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair courfe is not hindered,

He makes fweet mufick with th' enamell'd ftones;
Giving a gentle kiss to ev'ry fedge,
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;

And fo by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing fport, to the wild ocean.

Come, my Celia, let us prove,
While we can, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours for ever,
He, at length, our good will fever:
Spend not then his gifts in vain;
Suns that fet, may rise again :
But if once we lose this light,
"Tis with us, perpetual night.

Ibid.

I 2

Johnson's Volpone.
Cupid

Cupid conquers, ere he doth invade.
His victories of lightest trouble prove ;
For there's no labour, where is love.

my

lover:

Johnson's Mafques.

If I freely may discover,
What would please me in
I would have her fair and witty,
Sav'ring more of court, than city;
A little proud, but full of pity:
Light and humorous in her toying;
Oft building hopes, and foon deftroying ;
Long, but fweet in the enjoying:
Neither too easy, nor too hard;
All extremes I would have barr'd.

Angry Cupid, bolting from her eyes,

Johnson's Poetafter.

Hath fhot himself into me like a flame;
Where, now, he flings about his burning heat;
As in a furnace, fome ambitious fire,

Whofe vent is ftopt. The fight is all within me ;
I cannot live, except thou help me, Mofca;
My liver melts, and I, without the hope
Of fome foftair, from her refreshing breath,
Am but a heap of cynders.

Johnson's Volpone.

The body's love is frail; fubject to change,
And alter ftill with it: The mind is firm,

One and the fame; proceedeth firft from weighing,
And well examining what is fair and good:
Then what is like in reafon, fit in manners;

That breeds good will; good will defire of union:
So knowledge firft begets benevolence;

Benevolence breeds friendship; friendship love:
And where it starts, or fteps afide from this,
It is a meer degenerous appetite,
A loft, oblique, deprav'd affection;
And bears no mark, or character of love.

Johnfon's New Inn.
I could

. I could renew thofe times, when first I faw,
Love in your eyes, that gave my tongue the law,
To like what you lik'd; and at mafques and plays
Commend the felf-fame actors, the fame ways;
Ask how you did, and often with intent
Of being officious, be impertinent :

All which were fuch foft paftimes, as in thefe,
Love was as fubtly catch'd, as a disease ;
But being got, it is a treasure sweet,
Which to defend, is harder than to get :
And ought not be prophan'd, on either part;
For though 'tis got by chance, 'tis kept by art.

Johnfon's Underwoods. Love's wars are harmlefs, for whoe'er does yield; Gains as much honour, as who wins the field.

Chapman's Revenge for Honour. Love's fervice, is much like our hum'rous lords, Where minions carry more than fervitors; The bold and careless fervant still obtains : The modeft and refpective nothing gains.

Chapman's All Fools.

1. In love of women, my affection first
Takes fire out of the frail parts of my blood;
Which till I have enjoy'd, is paffionate
Like other lovers; but fruition past,
I then love out of judgment; the defert
Of her I love, ftill fticking in my heart,
Though the defire, and the delight be gone :
Which must chance ftill, fince the comparison
Made upon trial 'twixt what reafon loves,
And what affection, makes in me the best
Ever preferr'd: What moft love, valuing least.
2. Thy love being judgment then, and of the mind,
Marry thy worthiest mistress now being blind.
1. If there were love in marriage, so I would;
But I deny that any man doth love,

Affecting wives, maids, widows, any women;
For neither flies love milk, although they drown

In greedy fearch thereof; nor doth the bee
Love honey, though the labour of her life
Is fpent in gath'ring it; nor thofe that fat
Or beafts, or fowls, do any thing therein
For any love: For, as when only nature
Moves men to meat, as far as her pow'r rules,
She doth it with a temp'rate appetite,
The too much men devour, abhorring nature;
And in our most health, is our most disease:
So, when humanity rules men and women,
'Tis for fociety confin'd in reafon.

But what excites the bed's defire in blood,
By no means juftly can be conftru'd love;
For, when love kindles any knowing spirit,
It ends in virtue and effects divine;

And is in friendship chafte, and masculine.

Chapman's Revenge of Buffy D'ambois.
-For love is ftill

In hafte; and, as a lord that rules alone,
Admits no counsellor in good nor ill!
For he and kings gladly give ear to none,
But fuch as fmooth their ways, and footh their will.
Daniel's Civil War.
Read it, fweet maid, tho' it be done but flightly:
Who can fhew all his love; doth love but lightly,
Daniel's Sonnets.

How oft do they mifcarry in their love,
And how disloyal these fine herdsmen prove;
You fhall perceive how their abundant store
Pays not their expectation nor defires:
Witness these groves, wherein, they oft deplore
The miferable paffions they fuftain ;

And how perfidious, wayward, and unkind
They find their loves to be; which we, who are
'The eyes and ears of woods, oft fee and hear:
For hither to these groves they muft reført;
And here one wails a-part the ufage hard

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