This mafs of thought, this animated flime,
This dying fubftance, and this living fhadow,
The fport of fortune, and the prey of time,
Soon rais'd, foon raz'd, as flow'rs in a Meadow.
E of Sterline's Crafus.
Man is a crafty creature, hard to know;
Who can a face for ev'ry fortune frame :
No truft in mortals, no, nor faith below,
As our particulars do fometime move:
We what we wish for most, seem to mislike;
And oft of others do the course difprove;
Whilst we want only means to do the like.
E. of Sterline's Alexandrean Tragedy.
For our defects in nature who sees not?
We enter first things prefent, not conceiving,
Not knowing future; what is past forgot:
All other creatures inftant power receiving,
To help themselves; man only bringeth sense
Fo feel, and wail his native impotence.
Lord Brooke of Human Learning.
Oh wretched men, which under shame are lay'd,
For faults, which we, and which our parents made!
Lord Brooke's Mustapha.
Oh wearifome condition of humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound!
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity!
Created fick, commanded to be found!
What meaneth nature by these divers laws?
Paffion and reason felf-divifion cause.
Lord Brooke's Mustapha.
All other creatures follow after kind,
But man alone doth not beget the mind.
Drayton's Queen Margaret to Duke of Suffolk.
First feeds of ev'ry creature are in us,
What ere the world hath bad, or precious,
Man's body can produce: hence hath it been,
That stones, worms, frogs and fnakes in men are seen :
But who e'er faw, though nature can work so,
That pearl or gold, or corn in man did grow?
As man is of the world, the heart of man
Is an epitome of God's great book,
Of creatures; and men need no farther look.
'Tis the deepest art to study man:
I know this, which I never learn'd in schools;
The world's divided into knaves and fools.
Tourneur's Revenger's Tragedy.
Man's curfe is, things forbid ftill to purfue;
What's freely offer'd, not to hold worth view.
Dauborne's Chriftian turned Turk.
Nature, and all thofe univerfal pow'rs,
Which thew'd fuch admirable God-like skill,
In framing this true model of ourfelves,
This man, this thing call'd man! why do you thus
Make him a fpectacle of fuch laughter for you,
When in each man we fee a monarchy ?
For, as in ftates, all fortunes ftill attend;
So with a kingdom; with a compleat state
Well govern'd, and well manag'd, in himself
Both each man bears, when that beft part of man,
Reason, doth fway, and rule each paffion.
Is to be but the exercise of cares
In fev'ral fhapes; as miferies do grow,
They alter, as mens forms; but how, none know.
John Ford's Lover's Melancholy.
-As there is by nature
In ev'ry thing created contrariety;
So likewife is there unity and league
Between them in their kind: But man, the abstract Of all perfection, which the workmanship
Of heav'n hath modell'd; in himself contains
Paffions of feveral qualities: The mufick
Of man's fair compofition beft accords,
When 'tis in confort, not in fingle ftrains.
My heart has been untun'd these many months,
Wanting her prefence, in whofe equal love
True harmony confifted. Living here,
We are heav'n's bounty all, but fortune's exercise.
John Ford's Lover's Melancholy.. How poor a thing is man, whom death itself Cannot protect from injuries? O ye gods! Is't not enough our wretched lives are tofs'd On dang'rous feas, but we muft ftand in fear Of pyrates in the haven too? heav'n made us So many butts of clay, at which the gods In cruel fport fhoot miferies.
Randolph's Jealous Lovers.
1. From outward actions, man fhould not derive
The knowledge of himfelf; for fo, he's made
The creature of beginnings; over which
His virtue may command fortune and chance.
When he by fpeculation hath inform'd
His divine part, he is perfect; and till then
But a rough matter, only capable
Of better fortune. It oft begets my wonder,
That thou, a rude Barbarian, ignorant
Of all art, but of wars, which custom only
Hath, being join'd to thy first nature, taught thee,
Should't know fo much of man! 2 Iftudy man
Better from practice, than thou can't by books;
Thy learning's but opinion, mine known truth,
Subject to no grofs errors, fuch as cannot
Be reconciled, but by production
Of new and greater.
Nabbs's Hannibal and Scipio.
Man is an actor, and the world the stage;
Where fome do laugh, fome weep, fome fing, fome rage:
All in their parts during the fcene of breath,
A& follies, fcourg'd by the tragedian death.
Man is to man, a monster-hearted stone ;
With heav'n there's mercy, but with man there's none. Richards's Meffalina.
Horfes get their livings by their backs;
Oxen by their necks; fwine and women by
Their flesh; only man by his brain.
Richard Brome's City Wit. Much of man's fand through time's wide glass does run, Many of his freshest years do periods know :
A long part of his life's fhort web is fpun,
Ere he confiders, what he's born to do.
Nor is this lower world but a huge inn,
And men the rambling paffingers; wherein
Some warm lodgings find, and that as foon
As out of nature's clofets they fee noon,
And find the table ready laid; but fome
Muft for their commons trot, and trudge for room:
With eafy pace fome climb promotion's hill;
Some in the dale, do what they can, stick till:
Some through-falfe glaffes fortune smiling spy;
Who ftill keeps off, though the appears hard by.
Some like the oft rich with their wings do flutter,
But cannot fly or foar above the gutter:
Some quickly fetch, and double Good-Hope's Cape;
Some ne'er can do't, though the fame course they shape:
So that poor mortals are fo many balls
Tofs'd fome o'er line, some under fortune's walls:
And it is heav'n's high pleasure man should lie
Obnoxious to this partiality;
That by induftrious ways he should contend,
Nature's fhort pittance to improve and mend:
Now industry ne'er fail'd at last t'advance
Her patient fons above the reach of chance.
To ftudy God, God's ftudent, man was made;
To read him as in nature's text convey'd
Not as in heav'n; but as he did defcend
To earth, his eafier book: Where, to fufpend
And fave his miracles, each little flow'r,
And leffer fly, fhews his familiar pow'r.
Sir W. Davenant to Ogilby.
Mankind upon each other's ruins rife ;
Cowards maintain the brave, and fools the wife :
Honour and all religion bears a price,
But as the rates are fet by death and vice.
Sir R. Howard's Vefal Virgin.
I. What is a man? A congregation
Of difagreeing things; his place of birth,
A confus'd crowd of fighting elements;
To nothing fix'd, but to eternal change:
They would all lofe their natures fhould they fix.
2. Why, fay they did, were they not better loft
Than kept at fuch expence? What does poor man
Pay for vain life?
1. What's matter what he pays?
Gods did not make this world only for man;
He's but a parcel o'th'universe,
A fellow-fervant with the meaneft thing,
To carry on the fervice of the whole,
And pleasure o'the gods, the lords of all.
MARRIAGE.
We wordly folk account him very wife
That hath the wit moft wealthily to wed:
By all means therefore always we devife,
To fee our iffue rich in fpoufals fped.
We buy and fell rich orphans: Babes fcant bread
Muft marry, ere they know what marriage means:
Boys marry old trots, old fools wed young queans.
We call this wedding; which in any wife
Can be no marriage, but pollution plain :
A new-found trade of human merchandize;
The devil's net, a filthy fleshly gain :
Of kind and nature an unnat❜ral stain ;
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