Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	burn_v	great_a	time_n	3,594	5	3.3658	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84612	Five philosophical questions, most eloquently and substantially disputed: Viz: I. Whether there be nothing new in the world. II. Which is most to be esteemed; - an inventive wit, judgement, or courage. III. Whether truth beget hatred, and why. IV. Of the COCK; and whether his crowing doth affright the lion. V. Why dead bodies bleed in the presence of their murtherers.		1650 (1650)	Wing F1117; Thomason E615_11; ESTC R206547	21,350	36

comes to passe that the Cock hath a pre-eminence over the Lion which he understands not till the crowing raise in his imagination some species which in him produce terror Unlesse you will say that the spirits of the Cock are communicated to the Lion by meanes of this voyce for that is a thing more materiate and so more capable to act than the spirits which come out of sore eyes which neverthelesse do infect those that are found if they look on them nay to speak with the Poet they do bewitch the very lambs The second said we must reckon this error of a Cock scaring a Lion by crowing among divers other vulgar ones of which oftentimes the chaires and pulpits ring as if they were certaine truths when in the triall they prove stark false It may be some tame Lion growen cowardly by the manner of his breeding hath been seen affrighted by the shrill sound of some Cock crowing suddenly and neere to his eares which will seem not unlikely to them that in the beginning of March last past were present at the intended combat in the Tennis-court at Rochel between such a Lion and a Bull at the sight of whom the Lion was so afraid that he bolted thorow the nets throwing down the spectators which were there placed in great number as thinking it a place of greater security and running thence he hid himselfe and could by no meanes be made re-enter the lists Or it may be the novelty of this crowing surprised some Lion that never heard it before as having alwayes lived far from any village or countrey house where poultry are bred and thereupon the Lion at this first motion startled It is also possible and most likely too that the startle of choller whereinto the Lion fals as soone as any thing displeases him was mistaken by some body for a signe of feare whereas it was a token of his indignation For I see no shew of reason to imagine in this generous beast a true and universall feare of so small a matter as the voyce of a Cock seeing that this likenesse of nature which is attributed to them should rather produce some sympathy than any aversion and yet this enmity if any were and that as great as between wolves and sheep ought no more to scare the Lion than the bleating of a sheep affrights a wolfe But the wolfe devoures the sheep and assimilates it to his own substance rather for the good-will that he beares himselfe than for any ill-will or hatred that he beares toward the sheep Besides we ordinarily see Cocks and Hens in the court-yards of the houses where Lions are kept which never make any shew of astonishment at their crowing Nay I remember I have seen a young Lion eat a Cock 't is true he did not crow any more than those of Nibas a village neere to Thessalonica in Macedon where the Cocks never crow But the Lion would have been content with tearing the cock in pieces and not have eaten him if there had been such an antipathy between them as some imagine But this error finds entertainment for the moralls sake which they inferre upon it to shew us that the most hardy are not exempt from fear which oftentimes arises whence it is least looked for So that to ask why the crowing of a Cock scares Lions is to seek the cause of a thing that is not The third said we must not make so little account of the authority of our predecessors as absolutely to deny what they have averred the proofe of which seems sufficiently tried by the continued experience of so many ages for to deny a truth because we know not the reason of it is to imitate Alexander which cut the Gordian knot because he could not unty it It is better in the nature of the Cock and his voyce to seek a cause of the fright of the Lion who being a creature always in a fever by his excessive cholerick distemper of which his haire and his violence are tokens great noise is to him as intollerable as to those that are sick and feverish especially those in whom a cholerick humour enflamed stirrs up headach Besides there are some kinds of sound which some persons cannot endure and yet can give you no reason for it but are constrained to flie to specificall properties and antipathies and such we may conceive to be between the Cocks-crowing and a Lions eare shith much more likelihood than that the Remora staies vessels under full saile and a thousand other effects impenetrable by our reason but assured by our experience Lastly this astonishment that the Cock puts the Lion into with his crowing is not very unreasonable This king of beasts having occasion to wonder how out of so small a body should issue a voyce so strong and which is heard so farre off whereas himselfe can make such great slaughters with so little noise Which amazement of the Lion is so much the greater if the Cock bee white because this colour helps yet more to dissipate his spirits which were already scattered by the first motion of his apprehension FINIS VVhy dead Bodies bleed in the presence of their murtherers GOod Antiquity was so desirous to know the truth that as often as naturall and ordinary proofes failed them they had recourse to supernaturall and extraordinary wayes Such among the Jewes was the water of jealousie of which an Adulteresse could not drink without discovering her guiltinesse it making her burst Such was the triall of the Sieve in which the Vestall Nun not guilty of unchastity as she was accused to be did carry water of Tiber without spilling any Such were the oathes upon Saint Anthonies arme of so great reverence that it was beleeved that whosoever was there perjured would within a yeare after bee burned with the fire of that Saint and even in our times it is commonly reckoned that none lives above a yeare after they have incurred the excommunication of Saint Geneviefve And because nothing is so hidden from justice as murder they use not only torments of the body but also the torture of the soule to which its passions doe deliver it over of which Feare discovering it selfe more than the rest the Judges have forgotten nothing that may serve to make the suspected person fearefull for besides their interrogatories confronting him with witnesses sterne looks and bringing before him the instruments of torture as if they were ready to make him feele them they have invented all other meanes to surprise his resolution and break his silence especially when they have found already some signes and conjectures Wherefore they perswade him that a carkasse bleeds in the presence of the murtherers because dead bodies being removed doe often bleed and then he whose conscience is tainted with the Synteresis of the fact is troubled in such sort that by his mouth or gesture he often bewrayes his owne guiltinesse as not having his first motions in his owne power Now