Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	child_n	great_a	parent_n	1,520	5	8.2359	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70610	Essays of Michael, seigneur de Montaigne in three books : with marginal notes and quotations and an account of the author's life : with a short character of the author and translator, by a person of honour / made English by Charles Cotton ...; Essais. English	Montaigne, Michel de, 1533-1592.; Halifax, George Savile, Marquis of, 1633-1695.; Cotton, Charles, 1630-1687.	1700 (1700)	Wing M2481; ESTC R17025	313,571	634

do the four Ancient Kinds Natural Sociable Hospitable and Venerean either separately or jointly make up a true and perfect Friendship That of Children to Parents is rather respect Friendship being nourisht by Communication which cannot by reason of the great disparity be betwixt them but would rather perhaps violate the Duties of Nature for neither are all the secret thoughts of Fathers fit to be communicated to Children lest it beget an indecent familiarity betwixt them neither can the advices and reproofs which is one of the principal offices of Friendship be properly perform'd by the Son to the Father There are some Countries where 't is the Custom for Children to kill their Fathers and others where the Fathers kill'd their Children to avoid being sometimes an impediment to one another in their designs and moreover the Expectation of the one does naturally depend upon the ruine of the other There have been great Philosophers who have made nothing of this tie of Nature as Aristippus for one who being prest home about the affection he ow'd to his Children as being come out of him presently fell to spit saying that that also came out of him and that he did also breed Worms and Lice and that other that Plutarch endeavoured to reconcile to his Brother I make never the more account of him said he for coming out of the same hole This name of Brother does indeed carry with it an amicable and affectionate sound and for that reason he and I call'd Brothers but the complication of interest the division of Estates and that the raising of the one should be the undoing of the other does strangely unnerve and slacken this fraternal tie And Brothers pursuing their Fortune and Advancement by the same Path 't is hardly possible but they must of necessity often justle and hinder one another Besides why is it necessary that the correspondence of Manners Parts and Inclinations which beget these true and perfect Friendships should always meet and concurr in these relations The Father and the Son may be of quite contrary humours and Brothers without any manner of Sympathy in their Natures He is my Son he is my Brother or he and I are Cousin-germans but he is Passionate ill Natur'd or a Fool. And moreover by how much these are Friendships that the Law and Natural Obligation impose upon us so much less is there of our own choice and voluntary freedom Whereas that voluntary liberty of ours has nothing but that of Affection and Friendship properly its own Not that I have not in my own person experimented all can possibly be expected of that kind having had the best and most indulgent Father even to an extream old Age that ever was and who was himself descended from a Family for many Generations Famous and Exemplary for Brotherly Concord Horat. l. 2. Ode 2. Et ipse Notus in fratres animi Paterni And he himself noted the rest above Towards his Brothers for paternal Love We are not here to bring the Love we beat to Women though it be an Act of our own Choice into comparison nor rank it with the others the Fire of which I confess Catullus Neque enim est Dea nescia nostri Quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem Nor is my Goddess ign'rant what I am Who pleasing Sorrows mixes with my Flame is more active more eager and more sharp but withal 't is more precipitous fickle moving and inconstant a Fever subject to Intermission and Paroxisms that has seiz'd but on one part one corner of the Building whereas in Frindship 't is a general and universal Fire but temperate and equal a constant establish'd heat all easie and smooth without poynancy or roughness Moreover in Love 't is no other than Frantick Desire to that which flies from us Ariosto Canto 10. Com segue la lepre ill cacciatore Al freddo al caldo alla montagna al litto Ne piu l'estima poi che presa vede Et sol dietro a chi fugge affretta il piede Like Hunters that the flying Hare pursue O'er Hill and dale through Heat and Morning Dew Which being ta'en the Quarry they despise Being only pleas'd in following that which flies So soon as ever they enter into terms of Friendship that is to say into a concurrence of Desires it vanishes and i● gone fruition destroys it as having only a fleshly end and such a one as is subject to Satiety Friendship on the contrary is enjoy'd proportionably as it is desi●'d and only grows up is nourisht and improves by enjoyment as being of it self Spiritual and the Soul growing still more perfect by practice Under and subsellious to this perfect Friendship I cannot deny but that the other vain Affections have in my younger Years found some place in my thoughts that I may say nothing of him who himself confesses but too much in his Verses So that I had both these Passions but always so that I could my self well enough distinguish them and never in any degree of comparison with one another The first maintaining its flight in so lofty and so brave a place as with disdain to look down and see the other flying at a far humbler pitch below As concerning Marriage besides that it is a Covenant the entrance into which is only free but the continuance in it forc'd and compell'd having another dependance than that of our own Free will and a Bargain commonly contracted to other ends there almost always happens a Thousand Intricacies in it to unravel enough to break the Thread and to divert the Current of a lively Affection whereas Friendship has no manner of Business or Traffick with any but it self Moreover to say truth the ordinary Talent of Women is not such as is sufficient to maintain the Conference and Communication required to the support of this Conjugal Tie nor do they appear to be endu'd with Constancy of Mind to endure the pinch of so hard and durable a Knot And doubtless if without this there could be such a free and voluntary familiarity contracted where not only the Souls might have this entire fruition but the Bodies also might share in the Alliance and a Man be engag'd throughout the Friendship would certainly be more full and perfect but it is without example that this Sex could ever arrive at such perfection and by the Ancient Schools is wholly rejected as also that other Grecian Licence is justly abhorr'd by our manners which also fo● having according to their practice a so necessary disparity of Age and difference of Offices betwixt the Lovers hold no more proportion with the perfect Union and Harmony that we here require than the other Quis est enim iste amor amicitiae 〈◊〉 neque deformem adolescentem Cicero Tus lib. 4. quisquam 〈…〉 formosam senem For what is that Love of Fri●ndship why does no one Love a deform'd Youth or a comely Old Man Neither will that very Picture that the

haunted his House with a little Earth of the Sepulchre of our Lord which Earth being also transported thence into the Church a Paralytick to have there been suddenly cur'd by it A Woman in Procession having touch'd St. Stephen's Shrine with a Nosegay and after rubbing her Eyes with it to have recovered her Sight lost many Years before with several other Miracles of which he professes himself to have been an Eye-Witness Of what shall we accuse him and the two Holy Bishops Aurelius and Maximinus both which he attests to the Truth of these things Shall it be of Ignarance Simplicity and Facility or of Malice and imposture Is any Man now living so impudent as to think himself comparable to them Ciciro 2. de Div. l. 2. either in Virtue Piety Learning Judgment or any kind of Perfection Qui ut Rationem nullam afferent ipsa Authoritate me frangerent Who though they should give me no Reason for what they affirm would yet convince me with their Authority 'T is a Presumption of great Danger and Consequence besides the absurd Temerity it draws after it to contemn what we do not comprehend For after that according to your fine Understanding you have establish'd the Limits of Truth and Error and that afterwards there appears a Necessity upon you of believing stranger things than those you have contradicted you are already oblig'd to quit your hold and to aquiesce That which seems to me so much to disorder our Consciences in the Commotions we are now in concerning Religion is the Catholicks dispensing so much with their Belief they fansie they appear Moderate and Wise when they grant to the Huguenots some of the Articles in Question but besides that they do not discern what advantage it is to those with whom we contend to begin to give Ground and to retire and how much this animates our Enemy to follow his blow these Articles which they insist upon as things indifferent are sometimes of very great importance and dangerous Consequence We are either wholly and absolutely to submit our selves to the Authority of our Ecclesiastical Polity or totally throw off all Obedience to it 'T is not for us to determine what and how much Obedience we owe to it and this I can say as having my self made trial of it that having formerly taken the liberty of my own Swing and Fancy and omitted or neglected certain Rules of the Discipline of our Church which seem'd to me vain and of no Foundation coming afterwards to discourse it with learned Men I have found those very things to be built upon very good and solid Ground and strong Foundation and that nothing but Brutality and Ignorance make us Receive them with less Reverence than the rest Why do we not consider what Contradictions we find in our own Judgments how many things were yesterday Articles of our Faith that to day appear no other than Fables Glory and Curiosity are the Scourges of the Soul of which the last prompts us to thrust our Noses into every thing and the other forbids us to leave any thing doubtful and undecided CHAP. XXVII Of Friendship HAving considered the Fancy of a Painter I have that serves me I had a mind to imitate his way For he chooses the fairest Place and middle of any Wall or pannel of Wainscote wherein to draw a Picture which he finishes with his utmost Care and Art and the vacuity about it he fills with Gratesque which are odd Fantastick Figures without any Grace but what they derive from their variety and the extravagancy of their Shapes And in truth what are these things I scribble other than Grotesques and monstrous Bodies made of dissenting parts without any certain Figure or any other than accidental Order Coherence or Proportion Hor. de Art Poetica Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne That a fair Woman's Face above doth show But in a Fishes Tail doth end below In the second part I go Hand in Hand with my Painter but fall very short of him in the first and the better my power of handling not being such that I dare to offer at a brave piece finely painted and set off according to Art I have therefore thought fit to borrow one of Estienno de Boitic and such a one as shall honour and adorn all the rest of my work namely a Discourse that he called The Voluntary Servitude a piece writ in his younger Years by way of Essay in honour of Liberty against Tyrants and which has since run through the hands of several Men of great Learning and Judgment not without singular and merited commendation for it is finely writ and as full as any thing can possibly be Though a Man may confidently say it is far short of what he was able to do and if in that more mature Age wherein I had the happiness to know him he had taken a design like this of mine to commit his thoughts to writing we should have seen a great many rare things and such as would have gone very near to have rival'd the best Writings of Antiquity For in Natural parts especially I know no man comparable to him But he has left nothing behind him save this Treatise only and that too by chance for I believe he never saw it after it first went out of his hands and some Observations upon that Edict of January made Famous by our Civil Wars which also shall elsewhere peradventure find a place These were all I could recover of his Remains I to whom with so affectionate a remembrance upon his Death-bed he by his last Will bequeath'd his Library and Papers the little Book of his Works only excepted which I committed to the press And this particular obligation I have to this Treatise of his that it was the occasion of my first coming acquainted with him for it was shew'd to me long before I had the good fortune to know him and gave me the first knowledge of his name proving so the first cause and foundation of a Friendship which we afterward improv'd and maintain'd so long as God was pleas'd to continue us together so perfect inviolate and entire that certainly the like is hardly to be found in Story and amongst the Men of this Age there is no sign nor trace of any such thing in use so much concurrence is requir'd to the building of such a one that 't is much if Fortune bring it but once to pass in three Ages There is nothing to which Nature seems so much to have enclin'd us as to Society and Aristotle says that the good Legislators had more respect to Friendship than to Justice Now the most supream point of its perfection is this Perfect Friendship what for generally all those that Pleasure Profit Publick or Private Interest Create and Nourish are so much the less Generous and so much the less Friendships by how much they mix another cause and design than simple and pure Friendship it self Neither