Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	let_v	life_n	soul_n	9,147	5	4.9888	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78017	Balzac's remaines, or, His last letters· Written to severall grand and eminent persons in France. Whereunto are annexed the familiar letters of Monsieur de Balzac to his friend Monsieur Chapelain. Never before in English.; Correspondence. English. Selections	Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez, seigneur de, 1597-1654.; Chapelain, Jean, 1595-1674.; Dring, Thomas.	1658 (1658)	Wing B616; Thomason E1779_1; ESTC R209057	331,826	458

ad Inmortalitatem consecrare vale Romae Kalendis Januariis A. C. N.M.D CXXVIII Ex Epistola Johannis Jacobi Buccardi ad Franciscum Olearium Regiarum Rationum Lutetiae Magistrum LETTER III. To Monsieur de Bayers SIR IF I had known of your loss earlier I should sooner have shewen you what a part I beare in your griefe I just now understood the cause of it in the Gazette and make no question how strong and how fortified soever you be with Constancy but that you are sensible of the blow your family hath received and which will be felt all over our Province Without injury to nature reason cannot rank such like Accidents in the number of things Indifferent Tendernesse of heart is not incompatible with greatnesse of spirit for those who have undauntedly seen their own blood trickle down yet have with teares bewail'd their kindred and friends in that Condition Well Sir we must not think to make war upon other termes There was ever mourning and teares even on the side of victory Let us hope to recall him home who gives us occasion to speak so often of it and let us not ambition the Empire of the World at the rate of so deare a life as his You must in this life a●me your selfe with comfort against all sorts of death and that great kinsman of yours should countervaile all the former misfortunes of your life It is a perpetuall reason of Content and cause of satisfaction that there is no colour why you should grieve for any one or any lament you Yet I do it Sir in obedience to custome knowing withall that that part of the soul which suffers is strucken sooner then that which Reason hath warded off the blow I thought it was necessary for me to enter into the same thoughts with you but that it was as necessary too to get out of them and by a way which without doubt your selfe had made choice of I will hope that hereafter you will possesse all your joyes pure and serene and that Heaven who loves you reserves successes for you wherein your Moderation shall be more requisite then your Constancy at least I wish them you withall my heart being without Complement SIR Your c. June 5. 1642. LETTER IV. To Monsieur de Villemontee of the Kings Councell Controller of the Revenew in Poitou Saintonge Aunix c. SIR YOu will say it may be my zeal renders me impatient but though you could justly taxe it of indiscretion yet I must send this bea●er to you to know at his returne what I cannot be ignorant of without disquiet When I parted from you I left you in the best plight the study of wisedome could settle a mind perfectly reasonable and the Letter you did me the honour to write to me informes me of nothing that should not continue you in this good temper Neverthelesse I confesse that sentence of sadnesse among the rest runnes in my mind And in truth it would trouble me if so drowzy and effeminate a passion as that is should encroach upon your vigilance and fortitude I remember the sage discourse you held me in when your wound was yet greene sure you have not forgotten the great Precedent you then propounded and what was so ready in your memory at the day of our separation They who bequeathed us those high examples concerning which we held so long a conference were not happy or unlucky but in the good or bad fortune of the Common-wealth They bare so great a love to their Country that they left none for themselves They knew no dysasters b●t wicked actions and the blame that attends on them they dreaded faults but despised every thing else And unlesse you mightily dissembled you are of the same mind these are your principles as well as theirs and consequently Sir while you do the King service with courage and understanding and your Gowne saves him the expence of an army on this side the Loire while you maintaine your self in repute at the Court without losing the affection of the people and while by your dexte●ity the bitternesse of your medicines make not the Physitian distastefull I cannot think you have any need of consolation nor that the Melancholly and clouds of an afflicted soul can retaine their mists before the splendor and light of so unblemished a life He whom I have sent to you will without doubt bring me the confirmation of all this and the meaning of a sentence which I shall be very glad rightly to understand my passion is wittily resolv'd to perplexe me but your goodnesse me thinks is obliged to draw me out of it for I am not an ill interpreter of your words but because it is with affection which is never without alarmes that I am SIR Your c. Jul. 1. 1641. LETTER V. To Monsieur de Lymerac de Mayat Captaine in the Regiment of Conty SIR I Have no great inclinations to serve you in your request I know not how to bewaile a man who hath gotten so much honour as you You are more fit for Brave mens envy then Philosophers compassion and your laurells are much more delicate then your chaines a stubborne Imprisonment is not so great an evill as you imagine it it gives ill influences leasure to passe over you it reserves a man to a happier season and it may be we should have lost you if our enemies had not preserv'd you As concerning the Brimmers of Germany of which you spake to me with such griefe as if they were Turkish bastinadoes me-thinks your sobriety is there a thought too superstitious You must as they that talk proverbs say when you are at Rome do as they do at Rome and not to alledge to you great Commanders Do not you know that wise Embassadours have heretofore been fudled for the good of the Kings affaires and sacrificed all their wisedome and gravity to the necessity of the times and the custome of the countrys in which they resided I do not advise you to debauchery that is prohibited but I do not think there is any harme in drowning your cares now and then in Rhenish wine and to make use of that pretty trick of contracting the time which seemes tediously long to prisoners Your father all this while labours hard to procure your liberty and you must think he doth not forget his cares and usuall activenesse in a businesse that is neerer his heart then all his other For my part being able to contribute onely my good wishes I can assure you they are most ardent and passionate for I am as much as it is possible to be SIR Your c. Dec. 15. 1645. LETTER VI. To Monsieur de Prizac of the Kings Privy Councell SIR IT is better to be sick in your company then well in your absence The delight I now take comes not neere the comfort you gave me and your society is so good that it makes even diseases pleasant If it cannot be had at a lower price

meane eloquent Vrania's are worth at least as much as those that one Antipater a Sidonian wrote on the death of the learned Sapho You shall be the absolute and Soveraigne judge of them and to this purpose I send you the Greek Originall of the Post of Sidon with the Latine version of Doctour concerning which you must also pronounce the unrepealable sentence I am withall my soul SIR Your c. Aug. 9. 1644. LETTER XIIII To Monsieur Fermin Councellour to the King Controller of the Kings revenew in the Generality of Limoges c. SIR YOur leaving this country hath left a sting in my heart that continually goades me with a longing for your returne Our last conversation when I was your perpetuall auditour imprinted in my braine such lasting and acceptable Ideas that I have since done nothing else but blesse the hower wherein you gave them me and envy my deare friends who engrosse you to themselves whole dayes together they are happy if they can but be sensible of their good fortune if they do but know that a Commissioners place is the least gaine they can make by you I understand very well the advantages of such a neighbourhood and though I love nothing like quiet and all kind of noise be troublesome to me yet I protest the sound of your words had with much delight weaned me f●om the love of silence and solitude Since you do not despise the fruits that grow in this wildernosse I send you by Monsieur what i● hath brought forth in this season of drought It may be the noveltie may please you and because you love Tacitus and do not hate my Lord Cardinall de la Vallette I thought it would not be distastefull to you to peruse a manuscript that would put you in mind both of the one and the other My new way of consolation and the Method I use to practice on the sick Grandees to qualifie griefe by soothing it hath been received at Paris with approbations But although it had all the successe I could wish and passed for an originall after the making so many Consolations in the world yet since Men are still mortall and under the lawes of Fortune you may judge of it if you please Sir without respect to any preceeding sentence upon it You shall moreover decree soveraignly in the contest I had in Holland some yeares since the Pleadings whereof Monsieur now brings you My Scribe hath added to them the Letter written on the Kid which is yet in debate and referres to that famous Cause that divided all the Court-Wits into faction If the Kings service remand you to Angoulesme I would seek out some other recreations for you among my papers But if you should chance to travell the road of St. John d'Angely and be within fifty steppes of Balzac I will be confident you will not offer me a second affront by refusing me a visit where you may conferre so great favour on a Landlord that can give very diligent attention to you It is impossible but you must feel some remorse for using me so hardly and with out question you will sometime or other take the paines to come down the hil into the Valley and wade over a little rivulet for my sake who would cross an Arme of the Sea nay would not be afraid of the maine Ocean to give you a testimony that I am SIR Your c. July 15. 1636. LETTER XV. To Monsieur the Marquesse of Montausier Governour and Lieutenant Generall for the King in Alsatia c. SIR YOu wil know by Monsieur Chaplain with what respect I received the honour you did me by retaining me in your remembrance But you must understand from my self how great an obligation I resent in the handsome way whereby you were pleased to express it You comfort me Sir and that most gloriously for all the time and paper which hitherto I thought lost For now though I have taken pains only for an ungratefull Court and insensible Grande's yet since you prize my pains at so high a rate I look for nothing from any body you have paid me what others did apparently owe me Can it be that I not only take up your spare hours but cure your sadnesse and that such trifles as were only the pastime of the idle are become remedies for the afflicted Since you find them so savory I had rather for your sake call th●m the nutriment of wise men and if they were able to deserve that name I would begge of God but still for your sake the fertility of that good Prelate who hath strowed France with books and who lately counted the seaventy-fifth of his volumes It should be that you might be supplyed with whole convoyes of them from time to time and to quicken up those by my example who make the KINGS troops languish that they might not suffer you to lack money and ammunition as I could be carefull to furn●sh you with Histories and discourses The great consideration is this Sir you would afford the subject to thes● Histories and discourses if they would but give you wherewithall to undertake and act The share you had in that miraculous yeare of the Duke of Weymar will not give you leave to suspect but that as you were one of the Companions of his actions you shall be one of the inheritours of his thoughts they would be too bigge to be confined in breasts of an ordinary capacity and would stifle common souls with their weight But Sir what opinion do you thinke we have of the elevation of yours And what do you conceive Monsieur Chaplain and I promise our selves from your destiny things so high and extraordinary that not to say more they dant his verse and my prose and drive me almost to the shift and of a bare protestation which I make in this place that I am SIR Your c. Nov. 25. 1638. LETTER XVI To my Lord the Arch-bishop of Corinth Coadintour of the Archbishoprick of Paris My Lord IT was enough that you accepted the small present I sent you too much to thanke me for such inconsiderable trifle I expected not this second favour and believed the good fortune of my book had attained its higest at the courteous reception you gave it But you have done more you have with speeches of commendation consecrated a homage that was paid you before with thoughts of distrust and fear Who could not seriously fear such subtle and penetrating eyes as yours who pry out the most concealed defects and are offended at the sleightest staines who would not tremble my Lord in the behalfe of compositions so deformed as mine so unadorned with the Art of the Court almost as irregular as the buildings in our Village I do not doubt but they will become better improv'd had I but the honour to be neer you and one of those happy ones that heare you when teaching how to live well you exhibite a pattern of excellent speaking I count the

all places to render honour to his memory But the violation of his faith dispenses with me for that care and having been injur'd in such a degree all that I can do is to give him room in my charity and to pray God for a poor Deceased who were it not for that action would now have been one of the Demi-gods of my Closet The freedome whereof I make profession will not permit me to play the dissembler with you and I have discharged that into your bosome which lay so heavy upon my heart I had hitherto complained only to the Trees and Rocks of my Desart and my grief should have been still secret did it not concern me to justifie my silence to you and to assure you that it is not without reason that I bear not a part in the consort of your Funerall Elegies I am SIR Your c. Feb. 20. 1643. LETTER XX. To Monsieur de Flotte SIR I have been almost drown'd in an inundation of Rheume and I am not yet dry from my shipwrack I have great dread of the return of the tempest and that the clouds are not dispell'd in good earnest Notwithstanding without further expectation of a more assured calme I will make use of this tolerable moment to rejoyce for it with you yea and to give you my thanks for it too I have it in effect by your gift and you have restor'd me the use of my eyes and my soul 'T is by the reading of your Letter and Monsieur le Fevre's book that I renew the commerce which I had intermitted with all handsome Letters and good Books The receite of that you sent me has done me more good then you imagine They are not scare-crows but Armes which you have furnisht me withall Your Volume is my Arsenal and I do not doubt but when I have finish'd the Lecture which I am enter'd upon I shall be not only more polite and stor'd with fine Notions to make my self regarded amongst my neighbourhood but also much stronger and fortyfi'd with examples and reasons to defend the Rights of my Country In the mean time be pleas d to suffer me to remind you of some less serious Subjects which I have long expected of your-enriching and embroiderie I desire of you in the first place the History of that exemplary death which hapned in the Palace of Guise in the year sixteen hundred and eighteen The Dialog●e of Austin when he was dying with Monsieur the Almoner who exhorted him to dye like a Christian and b●unted all his Divinity against the hardness of his Turkish soul will be none of the worst passages of the piece But for the little that you will excite your mi●th in tickling your spleen you will make wonders o● his Testament and his taking leave of all the Pots and K●ttles one after another Policy which is my Mistress and the speculative Sciences my dear friends must pardon me if they please that I love this sort of Relations better then ●hose of Botero and Antonio Perez Amidst the Hostility of the two parties these should be the Gazettes inviolable to both and if they had leisure to laugh in Germany there is no Question but they would afford equall pleasure to our enemie Picolomini and Torstenson our Allie Let my request prevaile with you to exercise your self in these ●xcellent wayes of writing and do not suffer the graces of your discourse to expire with the sound of your voice Preserve us the memory of your feasts after the example of Plutarch and Athenaeus And to the end your good cheere may last after the Table is taken away and all the Compositum may tast it I meane the whole man prepare us a volume of novels which may deserve to be term'd even by the sober Monsieur Chaplain the Ragousts and delicates of the Wit Provided they containe no fo●bidden ingredient as there is in some of those of Boccace I promise you a publick remerciment for the pleasure you shall give me whereof I have so great need I beseech you consider of it and be pleas'd to believe me alwayes SIR Your c. 28 Decemb. 1641. LETTER XXI To Monsieur de Silhon Secretary to my Lord the Cardinal Mazarin SIR MOnsieur Chaplain ha's inform'd me of your zealous goodnesse and the heat which you testified in my little affaires They are obl●gations of which I am infinitely sensible and I consider them much more then all they can produce of profitable and advantagious to me I have need of my pension● but I cannot l●ve without your friendship and having assur'd me of the continuation of it in your last Letter you have given me much more then I shall receive from the Exchequer Yet I shall not make you a studied thanks for it nor put my self to the trouble of providing Rhetorick to send th●ther whence it comes to us You perceive the very bottome of my soul and know that I preserve you in it with what is most precious and deare to me with my Heroes and my Heroesses my Masters and Mistresses if I have any It is a cleare fountaine you need not doubt it and is not at all soil'd with particular interest Therefore Sir you may draw out the acknowledgment that is due to you But withall expect something from it wh●ch you have newly inspir'd me with and I owe to the reading of your last work The faire Ideas of our excell●nt reasonings which remaine still in my soul have left a se●d and principle of beauty in it which hath already germinated some thing that possibly w●ll not be displeasing to his Eminence I do not designe to passe with him for a maker of Pan gyricks But I can make it appeare to him in time and place and in matters of historicall certainty that an honest man of a good perswasion can relate truth with no bad grace And of this your self are an undeniable instance Tu Silo sacro Sophie quem Nectare pavit Qui pleno rerum pectore verba facis Qui cautas Regnandi artes dubia omnia ●octus Terrarum dominos optima sola doces Nec falsum nec inane sonas velut Aulica turba turba etiam ducibus plaudere sueta malis Hic quanquam haud aequo tua per vestigia passu Scilicet V●be procul sorte nec arte parem Me tamen Rectum Veri secreta latentis Secura invidiae quaerere mente juvat Veri diva potens Sophie mihi Numinis instar Tu Silo auctores vos sequor este mei I did not think to conclude with Verses but the first begat the rest as chance made the first I will not complaine of that chance but rather call it my good fortune if it ha's given me the meanes of expressing my meaning to you better and represented me in a more noble manner as I am perfectly SIR Your c. 19 Feb. 1644. LETTER XXII To the same SIR I Shall perhaps one day have the courage to attempt to

the Pedants in Greek better then the Pedants in French and the knowing youth of this Gentleman ought to be preferr'd before the aged sufficiency of I am SIR Your c. LETTER IV. SIR YOu have made a happy alteration in the Tomb of the Duke de Weymar 't is worth an Aegyptian Pyramid and the Eagle ready to fall under his blowes is not a change of small importance I have sent me the Translation of the Parasite which is barricado'd with such a company of bad Verses that I was in a mind to have arrested my curiosity there without passing farther He is certainly a rare fellow to elect and pick out himself for the Guardian of the French Honour and the abaser of the pride of Italy En Cor Zenodoti en jecur Cratetis I am sufficiently perswaded of the merit of Monsieur de Petrese but I spoke to you of his reputation and you know well that there is a certain donum famae that all learned men do not possesse and which renders those who enjoy it not onely considerable to the Nobility and Gentry but to the common People and Artizans I have not reviewed the book you sent me but neither do I think the first judgment I made of it was precipitated at the least I have a kindnesse for the Author and conceive he is not enough regarded he hath I know not what of grave and noble in him which extreamly pleases me I speak of his person and not of his first writings in which I acknowledge he hath too much played the Captain But who is he that hath not his failings and his tricks of youth There is not that thing in the world we can praise without exception and all men generally have need of grace Shall I see nothing of our dear Monsieur de Silhor's to quicken my appetite and shall I never hear the good newes that fortune at length hath some remorse for ill treating his vertue I expect the relation of this with some impatience as I shall the occasions of letting you know I am passionately SIR Your c. Balzac 16 Feb. 1640. LET. V. SIR I Interest my self very much in the praises Germany bestowes upon you and congratulate the good successe of your Sonnet I am resolved to quote it every syllable in a Chapter I am now studying And that you may know your friend is a Weymarian as well as you I must let you understand that that Hero a little before his death made an enquity after me and my studies with such care as well testified he attended somewhat from them Monsieur Feret his Secretary a person of much worth writ this in a Letter to Monsieur Borstel from whom I heard it I never saw in Italian the conspiracy of Giovan in Ludovico Count of Triesque but assure you the French Translation of it is a piece I do not much admire and the Epistle is but coorse I am now far entred into the quarrel of Annibal Caro but have nothing changed my first sentiment and I still esteem him an honester man then his Antagonist though perhaps the other may be the greater Clerk No Grammarian I ever yet saw hath that addresse and force of this Modenois either in this or in the Commentaries he made upon Aristotle's Poetiques yet it must be acknowledged he sometimes sins through his too much subtlety and that he is an enemy of mankind who cannot bear the merit or reputation of another I am SIR Your c. Balzac 1 March 1640. LET. VI. SIR VVHatever inclination the party you know of hath to slandering I cannot choose but think him a brave boy nay a gallant man since he is now enriched with a beard if I love him not with that sacred friendship I have for you at the least I can afford him such a passion as shall nothing incommode me and yet extreamly satisfie him I will put him in the number of Mountebanks of Perfumers Viollists makers of Ragousts and all those Artificers of pleasure which are virtuosi in Italy and who as you know Delectant Copetane non amantur That generation of people were banished from Sparta but were esteemed amongst the Sybarites and for my particular I regard them because I have need of mirth and am not displeased I have no obligement to love them because I desire to love few They are the cure of my distempers and the cause I suffer not out of my self at the least they spare me those alarums which ordinarily torture true friendship For Monsieur de Voiture he is alwaies himself that is alwaies a most excellent person and if at any time it hath been said Nature was never greater then in little things let us convert that to the advantage of his Tickets and prefer them before Volumes of Asiatique Authors I desire from you the continuation of his favours and intreat you to assure him of my service There are few persons in the world I esteem so much as him but amongst those few you are alwaies to be excepted The Metamorphosis was lately sent me which I read without much attention but in that tumultuary view I had of it I remarked many gallant things and perhaps the obscurity of certain passages in it proceeded onely from my carelessnesse in the perusall I say nothing to you of the invention of the fables but for the manner of expressing them it seems a little too far strained and puts me in mind of that antient Oratour who could not give the good-morrow without a figure But what will you say of the other party who enjoynes me to read a much larger piece but of a far lesser merit he may as soon perswade me to dig in a Mine as oblige me to it you know the rest and I remain SIR Your c. Balzac 15 March 1640. LETTER VIII SIR IN earnest your Sonnet is one of those noble pieces which command attention and which are esteemed more the renth time then the first I was never acquainted with all its excellencies till this day I am very farre from the comparison of the coal with which you are pleased to smut it and much fear I shall want words rich enough to ennammel it yet I shall not fail to enterprise that though I have onely Lead to set it in And be pleased to know without pretending to thanks for it there is no work of mine in which you shall not be seene on the right hand and on the left The Copy you did me the favour to send me is most exquisite and that way of writing pleases me much more then the way of some other Ladies famous for their Letters they preach and declaim a great part of the time and their Letters in folio are no other then grosse bodies ill animated in lieu of which all in this peice is full of spirit and which smels not of the lamp By what I understand our Gentleman of Rome means to change his name into as many shapes as ever Tabarin changed