Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	believe_v	know_v	word_n	4,525	5	4.2540	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B05023	Familiar letters. Vol. I. Written by the Right Honourable John, late Earl of Rochester, to the Honble Henry Savile, Esq; and other letters, by persons of honour and quality. With letters written by the most ingenious Mr. Thomas Otway, and Mrs. K. Phillips. Publish'd from their original copies. With modern letters, by Tho. Cheek, Esq; Mr. Dennis, and Mr. Brown.	Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of, 1647-1680.; Sidney, Algernon, 1622-1683.; Otway, Thomas, 1652-1685.; Cheek, Thomas.; Phillips, Katherine, fl. 1658.; Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704.; Ayloffe, W. (William).	1699 (1699)	Wing R1745A; ESTC R182831	73,342	242

sweet Pledge of your first softest Love I charm and here conjure you to pity the distracting Pangs of mine pity my unquiet Days and restless Nights pity the Frenzy that has half possest my Brain already and makes me write to you thus ravingly The Wretch in Bedlam is more at peace than I am And if I must never possess the Heaven I wish for my next desire is and the sooner the better a clean-swept Cell a merciful Keeper and your Compassion when you find me there Think and be Generous To Madam SInce you are going to quit the World I think my self oblig'd as a Member of that World to use the best of my Endeavours to divert you from so ill-natur'd an Inclination Therefore by reason your Visits will take up so much of this Day I have debarrd my self the opportunity of waiting on you this afternoon that I may take a time you are more Mistress of and when you shall have more leisure to hear if it be possible for any Arguments of mine to take place in a Heart I am afraid too much harden'd against me I must confess it may look a little extraordinary for one under my Circumstances to endeavour the Confirming your good Opinion of the World when it had been much better for me one of us had never seen it For Nature disposed me from my Creation to Love and my Ill Fortune has condemn'd me to Doat on one who certainly could never have been deaf so long to so faithful a Passion had Nature disposed her from her Creation to hate any thing but me I beg you to forgive this Trifling for I have so many Thoughts of this nature that 't is impossible for me to take Pen and Ink in my Hand and keep 'em quiet especially when I have the least pretence to let you know you are the cause of the severest Disquiets that ever touch'd the Heart of OTWAY To Madam COuld I see you without Passion or be absent from you without Pain I need not beg your Pardon for this Renewing my Vows that I love you more than Health or any Happiness here or hereafter Every thing you do is a new Charm to me and tho' I have languish'd for seven long tedious Years of Desire jealously and despairing yet every Minute I see you I still discover something new and more bewitching Consider how I love you what would not renounce or enterprize for you I must have you mine or I am miserable and nothing but knowing which shall be the happy Hour can make the rest of my Life that are to come tolerable Give me a word or two of Comfort or resolve never to look with common Goodness on me more for I cannot bear a kind Look and after it a cruel Denial This Minute my Heart akes for You and if I cannot have a Right in Yours I wish it would ake till I could complain to You no longer Remember Poor OTWAY To Madam YOU cannot but be sensible that I am blind or You would not so openly discover what a ridiculous Tool You make of me I should be glad to discover whose satisfaction I was sacrific'd to this Morning for I am sure Your own Ill-Nature could not be guilty of inventing such an Injury to me meerly to try how much I could bear were it not for the sake of some Ass that has the Fortune to please You In short I have made it the Business of my Life to do You Service and please You if possible by any way to convince You of the unhappy Love I have for seven Years toil'd under and Your whole Business is to pick ill-natur'd Conjectures out of my harmless freedom of Conversation to vex and gall me with as often as You are pleasd to divert Your self at the expence of my Quiet Oh thou Tormentor Could I think it were Jealousie how should I humble my self to be justify'd I cannot bear the thought of being made a Property either of another Man 's Good Fortune or the Vanity of a Woman that designs nothing but to plague me There may be Means found sometime or other to let you know your Mistaking To Madam YOU were pleas'd to send me word you would meet me in the Mall this Evening and give me further Satisfaction in the Matter you were so unkind to charge me with I was there but found you not and therefore beg of you as you ever would wish your self to be eased of the highest Torment it were possible for your Nature to be sensible of to let me see you sometime to Morrow and send me word by this Bearer where and at what Hour you will be so just as either to acquit or condemn me that I may hereafter for your sake either bless all your bewitching Sex or as often as I henceforth think of you curse Womankind for ever Mr. to Mr. G Dear G AS I hope to be sav'd and that 's a bold word in a Morning when our Consciences like Children are always most uneasie when the Light of Nature flashes upon us with the Light of the Day and makes way for the calm return of Thought that eternal Foe to Quiet but I thank my Stars I have shook that Snake out of my Bosom and made Peace with that Domestick Enemy Conscience and so much the more dangerous by being so But as I was going to say your Letter has put new Life into me and reviv'd me from the Damp that Solitude and bad Company has flung me into 't is as hard to find a Man of Sense here as a handsom Woman A company of Country ' Squires round a Table is like a company of Waiters round a dead Corps they are always ridiculously sober and grave or which is worse impertinently loud Wine that makes the gay Man of the Town brisk and sprightly only serves to pluck off their Vail of Bashfulness a Mask that Fools ought always to wear and which once off makes them as nauseous as a Bare-fac'd Lady of the Pit they are as particular in their Stories as a Lawyer in his Evidence and husband their Tales as well as they do their Moneys In short as Madam Olivia says they are my Aversion of all Aversions You may easily imagine I have too much of the Men but on my word I have too little of the Women Full of Youth Vigour and Health I lye follow and like the Vestal Virgins am damn'd to Coldness and Chastity in the midst of Flames God knows what hard shifts I use my Right-hand often does what like Acts of Charity I 'm asham'd my Left-hand shou'd know As much as I despise the Conversation of these Fops I court it out of an apprehension of being alone not daring to trust my self to so dangerous a Companion as my self 'T is in these cool Intervals of Solitude that we conspire Cuckoldom against our Friend Treason against the State c. for the Devil of Lust and Ambition like other Evil Spirits only appears to us when

matter I know another that has a fine Stable of Horses and a third that values himself upon his great Library yet one of them rides out but once in half a Year and t'other never looked on a Book in all his Life Admit your City-Friend loved you never so well yet he 's old which is an incurable Fault and looking upon you as his Purchase comes with a Secure that is with a Sickly Appetite while a vigorous Lover such as I am that has honourable Difficulties to pass through that knows he 's upon his good Behaviour and has nothing but his Merits to recommend him is nothing but Rapture and Extasie and Devotion But oh your are afraid it will come to Old Limberham's Ears that is to say You apprehend I shall make Discoveries for 't is not to be supposed you 'll turn Evidence against your self Prithee Child don't let that frighten you Not a bribed Parliament-man nor a drubb'd Beau nor a breaking Tradesman nay to give you the last satisfaction of my Secresie not a Parson that has committed Symony nor a forraging Author that has got a private Stealing-place shall be half so secret as you 'll find me upon this occasion I 'll always come the back-way to your Lodgings and that in the Evening with as much prudent religious Caution as a City Clergyman steals into a Tavern on Sundays and tho' it be a difficult Lesson for Flesh and Blood to practise yet to convince you Madam how much I value your Reputation above my own Pleasure I 'll leave you a Mornings before Scandal it self is up that is before any of the censorious Neighbourhood are stirring If I see you in the Street or at the Play-house I 'll know you no more than two Sharpers that design to bob a Country-fellow with a dropp'd Guinea know one another when they meet in the Tavern I 'll not discover my Engagements with you by any Overt-acts of my Loyalty such as Drinking your Health in all Companies and Writing your Name in every Glass-window nor yet betray you by too superstitious a Care to conceal the Intrigue Thus Madam I have answered all the Scruples that I thought cou'd affect you upon this matter But to satisfie your Conscience farther I am resolv'd to visit you to Morrow-night therefore muster up all the Objections you can and place them in the most formidable posture that I may have the Honour to attack and defeat them If you don 't wilfully oppose your own Happiness I 'll convince you before we part that there 's a greater Difference than you imagine between your Man of Phlegm and such a Lover as MIRTILLO To W. KNIGHT Esq at Rascomb in Berkshire Dear SIR YOu desir'd me when I saw you last to send you the News of the Town and to let you see how punctually I have obey'd your Orders scarce a Day has pass'd over my Head since but I have been enquiring after the freshest Ghost and Apparitions for you Rapes of the newest date dexterous Murders and fantastical Marriages Country Steeples demolish'd by Lightning Whales stranded in the North c. a large Account of all which you may expect when they come in my way but at present be pleas'd to take up with the following News On Tuesday last that walking piece of English Mummy that Sybil incarnate I mean my Lady Courtall who has not had one Tooth in her Head since King Charles's Restauration and looks old enough to pass for Venerable Bede's Grandmother was Married Cou'd you believe it To young Lisanio You must know I did my self the Honour now and then to make her Ladiship a Visit and found that of late she affected a youthful Air and spruc'd up her Carcase most egregiously but the Duce take me if I suspected her of any lewd Inclinations to Marry I thought that Devil had been laid in her long ago To make my Visits more acceptable I us'd to compliment her upon her Charms and all that where by the by my dear Friend you may take it for a general Rule that the Uglier your Women are and the Duller your Men they are the easier to be flatter'd into a Belief of their Beauty and Wit I told her she was resolv'd to act Sampson's part and kill more People in the last Scene of her Life than other Ladies cou'd pretend to do in the whole five Acts of theirs By a certain awkard Joy that display'd it self all over her Countenance and glow'd even through her Cheeks of Buff I cou'd perceive this nauseous Incense was not unwelcome to her 'T is true she had the Grace to deny all this and told me I rallied her but deny'd it so as intriguing Sparks deny they have lain with fine Women and some Wou'd-be Poets deny their Writing of Fatherless Lampoons when they have a mind at the same time to be thought they did what they coldly disown I cou'd not but observe upon this and several other occasions how merciful Heaven has been to us in weaving Self-love so closely into our Natures in order to make Life palatable The Divines indeed arraign it as a Sin that is they wou'd make us more miserable than Providence ever design'd us tho' were it not for this very Sin not one of them in a hundred wou'd have Courage enough to talk in publick For my part I always consider'd it as the best Friend and greatest Blessing we have without which all those merry Farces that now serve to entertain us wou'd be lost and the World it self be as silent and melancholly a sa Spanish Court 'T is this blessed Vanity that makes all Mankind easie and chearful at home for no Body's a Fool or a Rascal or Vgly or Impertinent in his own Eyes that makes a Miser think himself Wise an affected Coxcomb think himself a Wit a thriving gay Villain think himself a Politician and in short that makes my Lady Court-all believe her self But to quit this Digression and pursue my Story On the Day abovemention'd this dry Puss of Quality that had such a furious longing to be Matrimonially larded stole out of her House with two of her Grave Companions and never did a Country Justice's Oatmeal-eating Daughter of fifteen use more Discretion to be undone with her Father's Clarke or Chaplain Gray's Inn Walks was the place of Rendezvous where after they had taken a few Turns Lisanio and she walked separately to the Chappel and the Holy Magician Conjur'd them into the Circle From thence they drove home in several Coaches Din'd together but not a Syllable of the Wickedness they had committed till towards Night because then I suppose their Blushes were best concealed they thought fit to own all Upon this some few Friends were invited and the Fiddles struck up and my Old Lady frisk'd about most notably but was as much overtopp'd and put out of Countenance by the Young Women at Somerset-house with the New Buildings Not to enter into a Detail of all that happen'd

since Cheapside fails you a God's Name try your Fortune in Lombard-street But if you could order matters Otherwise and allow me a Week or so longer to make up my Sum you shou'd then be repaid with Interest by LYSANDER A Consolatory Letter to an Essex Divine upon the Death of his Wife OLD FRIEND A Gentleman that lives in your Neighbourhood told me this Morning after we had had some short Discourse about you that you have buried your Wife You and I Doctor knew one another I think pretty well at the College but being absolutely a stranger to your Wife's Person and Character the Old Gentleman in Black take me if I know how to behave my self upon this occasion that is to say whether to be Sad or Merry whether to Condole or Congratulate you But since I must do one or t'other I think it best to go on the surer side And so Doctor I give you Joy of your late great Deliverance You 'll ask me perhaps why I chose this Party To which I shall only reply That your Wife was a Woman and 't is an hundred to one that I have hit on the right But if this won't suffice I have Argument to make use of that you can no more answer than you can confute Bellarmine I don't mean the Popish Cardinal of that Name for I believe you have oftner laid him upon his Back than Mrs. Mary deceas'd but an ungodly Vessel holding about six Gallons which in some parts of England goes by another Name the more 's the pity 't is suffer'd and is call'd a Jeroboam And thus I urge it Mrs. Mary defunct was either a very good or a very bad or an indifferent a between Hawk and Buzzard Wife tho' you know the Primitive Christians for the four first Ages of the Church were all of Opinion that there were no indifferent Wives however disputandi gratia I allow them here Now if she was a good Wife she 's certainly gone to a better place and then St. Jerome and St. Austin and St. Ambrose and St. Basil and in short a whole Cart-load of Greek and Latin Fathers whom 't is not your Interest by any means to disoblige say positively That you ought not to grieve If she was a bad one your Reason will suggest the same to you without going to Councils and Schoolmen So now it only remains upon my hands to prove that you ought not to be concern'd for her Death if she was an indifferent Wife and Publick Authority having not thought fit as yet to oblige us to mourn for Wives of that denomination it follows by the Doctrin of the Church of England about things indifferent that you had better let it alone for fear of giving Scandal to weak Brethren Therefore Doctor if you 'll take my Advice in the first place Pluck up a good Heart secondly Smoak your Pipe as you used to do thirdly Read moderately fourthly Drink plentifully fifthly and lastly When you are distributing Spoon-meat to the People next Sunday from your Pulpit cast me a Hawk's Eye round your Congregation and if you can spy out a Farmer 's Daughter plump and juicy one that 's likely to be a good Breeder and whose Father is of some Authority in the Parish because that may be necessary for the Support of holy Church say no more but pelt her with Letters Hymns and Spiritual Sonnets till you have gain'd your Carnal Point of her Follow this Counsel and I 'll engage your late Wife will rise no more in your Stomach for by the unerring Rule of Kitchin-Physick which I am apt to think is the best in all Cases one Shoulder of Mutton serves best to drive down another I am Yours T. BROWN To the Fair LUCINDA at Epsom MADAM I Wish I were a Parliament-man for your sake Another now wou'd have wish'd to have been the Great Mogul the Grand Seignior or at least some Sovereign Prince but you see I am no ambitious Person any farther than I aspire to be in your good Graces Now if you ask me the Reason why I wish to be so 't is neither to bellow my self into a good Place at Court nor to avoid paying my Debts 't is to do a Publick Service to my Country 't is to put the fam'd Magna Charta in force In short Madam 't is to get a Bill pass whereby every pretty Woman in the Kingdom and then I am sure you 'll be included in it shou'd under the severest Penalties imaginable be prohibited to appear in Publick without her Mask on I have often wonder'd why our Senators flatter us with being a free People and pretend they have done such mighty things to secure our Liberty when we are openly plunder'd of it by the Ladies and that in the face of the Sun and on His Majesty's Highway I am a sad Instance Madam of this Truth I that but twelve Hours ago was as free as the wildest Savage in either Indies that Slept easily Talk'd cheerfully took my Bottle merrily and had nothing to rob me of one Minute's Pleasure now love to be alone make answers when no Body speaks to me Sigh when I least think on 't and tho' I still drag this heavy lifeless Carcase about me can give no more account of my own Movements than of what the two Armies are doing this very moment in Flanders By all these wicked Symptoms I terribly suspect I am in Love If that is my case and Lucinda does not prove as merciful as she is Charming the Lord have mercy on poor MIRTILLO To the Same at LONDON MADAM AT last but after a tedious Enquiry I have found out your Lodgings in Town and am pleas'd to hear you 're kept by who according to our last Advices from Lombard-street is Rich and Old two as good Qualities as a Man cou'd desire in a Rival May the whole World I heartily wish it consent to pay Tribute to all your Conveniences nay to your Luxury while I and none but I have the honour to administer to your Love Don't tell me your Obligations to him won't give you leave to be complaisant to a Stranger You are his Sovereign and 't is a standing Rule among us Casuists that under that capacity you can do him no wrong But you imagine he loves you because he presents you with so many fine Things After this rate the most impotent Wretches wou'd be the greatest Lovers for none are found to bribe Heaven or Women so high as those that have the most defects attone for You may take it for granted that half the Keeping-drones about the Town do it rather to follow the Mode or to please a vain Humour than out of Love to the Party they pretend to admire so and this foolish Affectation attends them in other things I cou'd tell you of a certain Lord that keeps a Chaplain in his House and allows him plentifully yet this Noble Peer is a rank Atheist in his Heart and believes nothing of the