Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n
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A25694
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An apology for lovers, or, A discourse of the antiquity and lawfulnesse of love by Erastophil, no proselyte, but a native of that religion.
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Erastophil.
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1651
(1651)
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Wing A3544; ESTC R8369
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23,849
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122
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AN APOLOGY FOR LOVERS OR A Discourse of the Antiquity and Lawfulnesse of LOVE By Erastophil no Proselyte but a native of that Religion Faelices ter amplius Quos irrupta tenet copula nec malia Divulsus querimoniis Suprema citius solvet amor die Horat. ad Lydiam Ode 13. London Printed in the year 1651. TO My Dearest Sister Mrs. M. VV. My Dearest Sister WHat I long since promised I now perform if a thing imperfectly slubber'd over and in hast may merit the name of a performance but for that as I acknowledge the debt so I look upon you as an easie Creditress and not so scrupulous as to refuse payment because it comes in clipt and broken money 'T is true I have sometimes heretofore thought of it but those thoughts perisht almost in the very conception without producing any thing unless it were some few rude lineaments and which I should call the rough draught of this discourse but that I should be injurious to it as it is now by robbing the thing of its apellation although I am perswaded the conceptions concerning this subject being so exceeding fine and having so little commerce with sense are not to be exprest to the life by the most curious Pencil much lesse by so uneven an hand as mine but are like to those which Apelles is said to have drawn when he contended with Protogenes Lineas visum effugientes however deliniated it is yours by a double relation both because I know you to be and me thinks there should be no one of so little humanity as not to be a friend to lovers and next because it is a task which I had not undertaken but upon your assignment and so in both respects most properly belonging to you For a conclusion I wish you all the joys of Love of Youth and Health and what ever Happinesse else is to be found in this World and in the next eternal and ever lasting Felicity Your most affectionate Brother and Servant Erastophil To my worthy friend the Author on his Apology for Lovers I 'Ve seen thy fair Design and I approve Thy each part like the first great Act of Love When fire pursu'd and water stood at Bay Heat fought with cold and darkness with the day When Nature was all tempest when no Cheek Had smiles nor were there lips to kiss or speak When unfledg'd Cupid had no wings to flie Nor were his shafts plac'd in the killing eye Love calm'd the Chaos and reduc'd the brawl Into a good a great and glorious ALL Thus friend thy pâ—â— transcribes his draughts above And every line runs parallel with Jove Something alike in both my fancy finds He work'd on matter thou doost work on minds Love was his creature but thy ward nay thou Ar't more then Guardian to that passion now He in a larger volumn did express His admir'd flame thou doest it in a less And though thy narrow Trace may not contend With his vast course yet both conspire in th' end To the same point of union thou dost run As Heliosropes do imitate their Sun Me thinks I see the soul like some course fire Ally'd to Coal inslav'd with a defire Of pelf and stock so that her noble flame Feeds on cheap chips and stuff beneath her name Health to thy brave design that would translate Our Spirits from this durty Kitchin-state And fix them in a heaven where eys with eys And beams with beams may twist and eternize Why should we doat on trash and so misplace That on the Fan which is due to the face Stars mix with stars and trouble not the earth Least st should interpose and soi the Birth I would fright the Mother did the Childs aspect But figure that most fathers do affect And well she might mistake her self a Mint Did stamp Philippo's and bring forth in Print We should have children fac'd like Duckatoons And like George riding too out of the Wombs Such indirect affections I can pitty And justly may bequeath them to the City There without Love Gold onely hath the Name They have the Fuell but they want a Flame Eugenius Philalethes To my dear Brother upon the publishing of his Apologie for Lovers I Thank thee for this Credit thou hast done A Stock of super-erogation Now I may run upon the score and say My Younger Brother will the reck'ning pay Thou mak'st up what I want I now may play The Fool and Elder-Brother ev'ry day And yet be born with for though my Scale 's light It well may passe because thine 's over-weight But is 't impossible I should be screw'd T'a higher pitch more near thee Am I mew'd Unto a Ne plus ultra nor can find Some way to Elevate my sluggish mind Am I so sottish or so little kin To Thee that Emulation cannot win Upon my Genius nor resemble it In some proportion to thy lofty wit It will not be Nor can a man invite On any tearms an Aethiop to look white Where didst thou get my dear Evastophil This huge advantage I did climb the Hill Of Nature first but now in all beside Thou hast out stript me the whole Heaven-wide Sure there 's a different stuff in Thee and Me Or is 't the Fate of firstlings that they be Essayes and rough casts which the following draughts Exceed far more then do the second Thoughts I 'me but thy Hench boy and thy Harbinger The Prologue to thy day thy morning star Nay to speak truth thou art so much alone That there 's between us no comparison Nor can my verse commend more then the Gown On Horseback did that Otacousticon That would demonstrate his new ta'ne degree To his admiring friends in the country Yet fear not thou shalt have thy due applause The great Eugenius who knows natures laws And can tie love knots there he who held forth A candle to the world approves thy worth And Deigns to Vsher in thy Virgin muse So did the noble generous Romans use To grace their friends as Scipio for his brother Wore a blew coat for his own son another F. W. AN APOLOGIE FOR LOVERS Gen. 29. vers. 20. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had unto her CErtainly if man could ever have brocked Solitude or beene happy in himselfe without the Society of another it was the in the state of his Innocency when his understanding was clear and unclouded his will indifferent and unbyassed his affections regular and obedient and in a word all the faculties and powers of his soule healthfull and undiseased for having so absolute a command over himself so vast a Seigniory and unlimited Empire over the creatures it was not to be expected that his condition should be more independent than then it was or himself better able to subsist without supply from any other yet even then amidst all these perfections he was imperfect amidst all these riches he was in poverty there
name of this most pure and unspotted flame were an impiety altogether unpardonable no when Love hath once taken possession of the soul when affection hath once inspir'd it it presently sets all the faculties and powers of it on work there is no room then no place for idlenesse every corner is filled every angle is replenished every recesse is taken up How many from meer beasts and savages in a sort to instance in adventitious acquir'd love of which we have examples as well as of naturall hath it restored to reason and humanity How many proud and ambitious men hath it taught humility and obsequiousnesse How many fierce and cruell minds hath it made affable and gentle How many ignorant and blockish persons have become great Schollars Fools Philosophers Cowards valiant being instructed by Love then which there is not a more excellent Schoolmaster in the World Away then ye morose Rigid Satyrists and supercilious Antiamorists with your long Beards and starcht faces you that can personate Vertue with such a counterfeit and seeming Gravity and like the Philosopher in Lucian have taught your browes the knack to bend at the mention of Vice when indeed for all your dissembling and hypocritical Vizards none are more rotten and corrupt at the bottome then your selves Most excellently and truely is Love described and vindicated from those most false and unjust Aspersions ye have cast upon him by * one whose Knowledge is greater thē your Ignorance Vnjustly saith he do severe men accuse Love and paint him in a loose and feeble Figure when there is nothing more sincere amongst mankind provided that he burn in just limits and those raised by Vertue and fire not with an unlawfull Flame where he is forbidden And in another place saith he This Flame is kindled even in children in whom their innocency may be a sufficient Apology for the purity of it Nay saith he elsewhere you shall see many of the honest est kind of men tormented with a care or to call it rightly a love of some Youngmen And this Love is a certain tye of Benevolence more but and violent then to be called Friendship How solicitous are they how fearefull lest they should do any thing amisse or unworthy of those thoughts and cares they bestow upon them that you may know that Love is planted in Worthy Breasts I will conclude therefore that so far forth is Love from making men to become effeminate and slothfull that there is not in the World a greater spur or sharper Incentive to Noble and Heroicall Actions Lastly I might note in our Lover one thing more and that is that he was a Younger Brother and from thence infer if I shall not be thought too much to strain for this Inference that Younger Brothers as it should seem are more fitted and better dispos'd for Lovers then Elder whether it be that Nature takes the better aym from her first Aberrations correcting these Younger Copies by the Errata's of the former or that Custome which is a second Nature gives them this Priviledge and Advantage for being for the most part habituated to sufferance and hardship there mindes become thereby as more gallant and resolute so withall more humble pliant and tender and fitter for Love to make his Noble Impressions in whereas on the contrary side Elder brothers being bred up with hopes and expectations of estates and fortunes though by their favour to speak the truth in behalf of all Younger brothers neither by the Lawes of God nor Man have they any so absolute a Birthright but that the Inheritance may at any time with the consent of Parents bee as lawfully and as justly dispos'd to any Younger son as to them or any of them And that this is no idle or vain Assertion be pleas'd but to read over a Book intituled The Younger Brothers Apology a most excellent Discourse and very wel worthy the perusal of al Owners of estates of Inheritace to rectify their judgments by wherein what I say is fully and evidently demonstrated and clear satisfaction given in the point whereto I might likewise adde that throughout the whole Book of GOD you shall not finde any to whom he exprest a more peculiar favour to then to yonger Brothers as were easie to instance in Abel in Iacob here in Judah in Joseph in Ephraim in Moses in David in Solomon and in many others which I cannot now call to mind all Younger Brothers I say Elder Brothers being for the most part delicately and wantonly educated and not with that rigour and severity which the Younger are by that meanes their mindes become more haughty and imperious and that suits not with a Lover for he must be of a disposition though not servile yet obsequious and willing to suffer and endure any thing whatsoever for his Mistresse sake which brings me to the next branch of the Text The Penance served And Jacob served All men by nature were born free Servitude and Bondage was first brought into the world by Sinne and is by the Civilians defined to be a Constitution of the Law of Nations by which contrary to nature one is subjected to anothers power for Sin first inslaving his minde his body soon after came to be captivated for by sin entred death and all other miseries both precedent concomitant and subsequent and indeed it was but just with Almighty God that since man would not be obedient to but deviated and deflected from the rule of his most sacred perfect Will whose service is perfect Freedome that he should be made a slave to the unjust and tyrannicall Will of his Fellow-Creature which heretofore hath been so large and so far extended that they had Vitae potestatis necem absolute power over life and death to save and kill at pleasure and afterwards had a very unlimited Authority and Jurisdiction untill such time as Justinian the Emperour in favour of Liberty abrogated the Law stiled Lex Fusia Caninia which was very rigorous and severe even in the formalities of Manumission though now it be utterly ceast and quite grown out of fashion throughout all Christian Commonwealths and indeed it might be truly called what Sennertus doth in another case of being born deafe and dumb Miserandum malum for herein the condition of man was more miserable then that of Beasts for we do not see that they serve one another only if they contend as it sometimes happens the more impotent and weaker gives place to the stronger and more excellent for herein their excellency consists as properly as in any thing else but the misery of servitude in man received agravation from his having reason to be sensible of it in all the circumstances which might exasperate and heighten it For first the original of it proceeded not from any Victory obtain'd by one man over the reason of another which might justly challenge a superiority since therein the excellency of man consists as being thereby distinguisht