and then on his own benefits 'T is necessary that Love be immortal It is a death either because 't is vow'd to eternity or because it always undergoes the changes of death For who is there that does not know that the last Will and death of a Lover must be dated from the time when he breathes out his soul in his last sigh to be received by the mouth of another makes him compleat Heir of himself dispenses his goods sending them before as harbingers whither he is prepared to follow He has the Divine priviledge of Prophets to be rapt out of himself to enjoy a perpetual ecstasie of life and to be emptied of his own Soul that he may be more happily replenish'd This is the Pythagorical Transmigration with anothers I believe the Transmigration of Pythagoras may be thus verifi'd not by his Philosophy but by his Love For then his desultorious and quicksilver soul shifting it self at pleasure of the bodily case as of Cloths repairs hastily to its pleasanter retreat and more fair receptacle as to the groves of Elysium No person can be happy before this death which is occasion'd by Love and Philosophy The latter does it by disengaging the soul from the body now all-dissolving in the Contemplation of amiableness The former by sending it forth to the imbraces of its fair Object Thence arises a loathing hence a flight and riddance of himself On each hand there is an aspiring to a Fate Noble and void of all necessity and Phoenix-like an ambitious longing for death At the sight of a more Elegant Structure like a delicate and nice Lady he nauseates his own apartment with a proud uneasiness and then wanders out into those florid regions where since it was not his happiness to be born he will sojourn till he grow old in them or by repeating the rudiments of his life be re-born Whoever you are who will not admit these excursions of fugitive souls do but observe more narrowly how the soul collects it self all to that place where she approaches nearest to her dearest If they joyn hands you 'd swear their palpable souls distributed themselves into the fingers on purpose to take fast hold of each other If their sides be contiguous you 'l perceive an exultation of their hearts and their spirits mutually trooping thither in an hurry violently beating and like Rusticks saluting one another with strokes striving for vent till they almost break Prison to get forth By what Charm is the suddain and Extemporary Whence blushing proceeds from the sight of the person lov'd blood fummon'd up into the Cheeks at the sight of that dear Creature and as the hand of a wounded heart points at the striker no otherwise than as the revengeful blood of a stain man vents it self upon the Murtherer With this only difference that one of these Crimson souls by I know no what instinct hastens after Revenge and the other after a Cure Observe again how greedily their souls keeping Sentinel in the ears lie at catch for words and by and by turn themselves into them interchange Spirits while they hold Conference and inform the very desires which they utter Observe again how their Souls in a perpetual Emanation gliding from Whence a deliquium their eyes waste themselves in Passionate glances and suffer many a faint swoon with gazing 'T is one and the same thing with Lovers to speak and expire to see and dart themselves out to gaze and be transform'd into the Spectacle So impatient is the whole man of departure that sometimes he shifts himself into the eye sometimes into the ear and lives only in that part where he enjoys his Consort Thus Love teaches men a more Compendious knack of living and makes them content like some Insects with one only sense Yet this is not to maim the man but to render him more Divine by the fewness of Organs required to the Function of life But that which occasions a sweet It is an extension of the soul detriment in the body gives inlargement to the Soul Which though formed for one breast now diffusing it self by a kind of expansion informs another redoubling its life She knows not in this confused Miscellany of bodies for which she was at first made so that in all Love there is improvement Whoever Loves becomes forthwith a number by himself Like Antipheron he carrys about with him his He diffuses â—one into many daily Company and enjoys his other self as his mate if that may be call'd a number which is computed with the same counter which one only man distinguishes placed here and there by turns It happens by a fruitful errour to Lovers as well as Drinkers that all things appear double to them but withall so double as the eyes are which have but one motion one vision Here you may see two running into so Out of many it makes one close an Embrace that they incorporate and become one and so lose their Embraces in the undistinguishable foldings of their arms While after the lot of Salmacis 't is the same that does desire and is desired he knows not whether he more truly Loves or is belov'd neither does he enjoy but is changed into his wish Pish you put a trick upon me now Cupid with your excess of Munificence while you hide that within my breast which I seek to embrace You are too propitious do something of a contrary nature that we may be two that we may perceive our selves to be what we wish 'T is prejudicial to a Lover to enjoy too much 'T is prejudicial that he whom I would have my partner should be all one with my self Always thus to will and nill the same has no society in 't but much of a Ridiculous tediousness When we would consult we do but assent by course and instead of being mutually officious we are ridiculous to one another Methinks I embrace a shadow instead of a friend which always presses me close at the heels and imitates all my motions Withdraw a little from me O my friend nearer to me than my self wish as well to me as you can but prithee Love me a little less But O what a profitable bill of exchange has this Cupid the Vsurer of hearts Whence the same Plastic vertue of Cementing Souls which out of many makes one diffuses also one into many So 't is the same Unite which uncapable by it self of Computation is yet the principle of number So Multiplication and Addition belong to the same art Neither do we think this a damage but an advantage and perhaps a greater to have our strength collected than extended at large The more simple every thing is the more perfect To transcend the bounds of all space and number is the property of God Whatever is the best and chiefest must be one And as Love is honour'd with the perfection of chiefest Unity so is it with another that of self-communication For whatever
turns both of these are of a singular nature and will not admit of two sharers If you fansie Love to be a God he Loves to reside in one Heaven if fire that also is confined to one Sphere if death the Gods forbid a frequent expiration or that we should commit our souls to the bosome of another more than once since they grant us but once to live Or if you call a Lover the Mirror Coin or Seal of his dear object all which receive both form and value from the impression know then that this looking-glass can be inform'd but with one intire image at a time that this Coin can be innobled with the face but of one King that this Seal like that of a letter is closed fast to all but one and that all these are not capable of a new impression without the defacing of the former But if you consider Polygamy in the marriage of Souls is as bad as incest that friendship is nothing less than the Marriage of Souls you should think it an hanious Crime in these Masculin Hymens to admit Polygamy by superinducing a new one to unmarry the old and to Cuckold ones friend Does then that Passion which distinguishes Yet it is so of one as not to be inhumane toward all others humane Societies from the Herds of the field by too much devotedness bring men about again to the level of Beasts and to Stoical barbarity the contempt of all And must he who loves one intirely hate all mankind besides The gods forbid Nothing certainly is more courteous than Love and Philosophy nothing more generous nothing except the gods affords a greater Patronage to the world The very familiarity of friendship makes their minds easie and soft and disposes them to benevolence just as a marriage does young Brides who now put off their Coyness But so as a new bride less difficult and coy and use more freedom of conversation towards all others They communicate their Rays like the Sun to the whole world though they gild Rhodes with a peculiar and distinguishing Lusture You must know that one man is dedicated to another just like a book sent to one but to be read by all yet after the perusal of that one We owe much gratitude to those candid and generous Souls so much resembling the genius of Heaven in that they favour not one only man but all mankind with a benign influence Who as if they were the first Parents look upon all Nations as their own families esteem all as dear to them as their kindred and as if they were born every where or had an amplitude of mind equal and Commensurate to the whole Globe stand affected to every Country as their Native one and so deservedly find it But this we don 't call friendship but a certain benevolence and wandring courtesie Neither do we find Polyphily is not friendship but benevolence and a wandring courtesie fault with this or accept it with less Candor than they use even toward their enemies But we would only curb the too wanton and Courtly affections of those who pride themselves in the number of Salutations and retinue of friends no less than in a guard of lackies ambitious as much of the badges of Vertue as of State and loving to sweat in the throng of Clients But this is the manner of proud Ladies who are not over-stock'd Polyphily without benevolence is not so much as courtesie but savours of pride and lasciviousness with chastity with a pretence of obligingness to insnare others affections openly to dispence their kind Embraces but still as to one only studiously to compose a face to level particular nods at him and him to scatter up and down enticing glances to divide here and there flattering smiles And lastly as it were to betroth their souls And assoon as the prey is inveigled as it frequently falls out to withdraw the enchanting lure O the most vile sort of pride To number the flocks of their Lovers among the rest of their feminine interests and improvements of Beauty But since whosoever is hot in the highest degree of true genuine fire has not the will to Love less nor the power to Love more Neither is it enough that he disregards others unless he also contemn himself and deny himself as well as others a share in his own flames freezing within his own Sphere and remaining a cold Salamander in the midst of the incircling flames Since he is wholely remov'd from his own breast forgets himself is wholely concern'd for his friend and fears nothing on his own behalf unless lest he should not act the part of a friend as he ought Since he is wise for another and blind as to his own interest committing himself to the Fates or to what is a greater safeguard the care of his friend For he on the other hand is as much concern'd with fears and forecasts in his behalf He inspirits him like an assisting form so that he resembles the Heavens in being govern'd by an intelligence Since I say he thus renounces himself whosoever inserts himself into another and consigns himself as one dead to Oblivion and since as it should be the only dear thing to him is his friend in whom he enjoys a more vital life after death and about whom he sportfully hovers like a pale Ghost about his body The School-man of Amours has stated an unjust measure rather of hatred than affection the Love of one self And has done ill in proposing us to our selves as patterns of Heroical Love For of what small account is every one with himself Where is that man who not captivated to anothers desires nor season'd with manners not his own does live less to another than to himself Neither is it to be imputed to our vices but to our Vertues that we become Vassals to anothers pleasure Some Vertues are severe upon their owners and are never disserviceable but to our selves which yet to others bring in a great income That modesty which promotes its own disparagement and humbly dislikes all purple but that of a blushing face ambitious of contempt yet transfers the Encomiums due to it self upon another with a steel'd boldness That ambition which toiles on anothers account is graced with the title of fidelity and Candour That armour which is worn on the breast does but only forge a man into a shield Errant for the defence of others though with the expence of his own safety No man dy's for the mere prevention of his own death but that he may intercept the fatal arrow from his Parents Children or some others What did I say no man dies No man lives on his own account But if bare nature and solitary Vertue without friendship can produce such a combination or rather self-dedication that every one should count himself the least part of himself let it be a shame that friendship which adds to Vertues new strength accomplishment and humanity should
by misery it self to demonstrate himself a Lover Do you call him stupid because he 's as much affected and inflamed with blows and flouts as with the greatest endearments of kindness Believ 't he 's become all Soul or at least a celestial spark of fire which is insensible of strokes or if that sound ridiculous know that 't is the Philosophy of Love to conquer anger with kindness and extinguish one fire with another but a more noble one This does notwithstanding rather argue the great fervour than stupidity of the Lover for as injuries disregarded wear off so lovingly receiv'd are changed into favours or as all hard things are broken upon a yielding softness Why do you still exclaim against The faults of a Lover Please him as mad and blind because he dotes upon the very blemishes of another as starry ornaments collects a beauty out of defects and by a good-natured mistake like a Panegyrist graces a fault with the name of a neighbour Vertue Let his Mistress be never so careless of her self the Artificial Lover still represents her to himself in the most lively ornament of additionary Beauty But you with too much rigour require a Censor instead of a Friend and Judgement instead of Affection by envying the Lover this happy delusion wherein he so pleases himself Let him impose upon himself this commendable cheat and frame a more than ordinary Idea of her in his mind whom he intends there to adore and contemplate with a more than ordinary devotion Painters should not draw Faces too Conscientiously but now and then bestow a favourable stroke flatter the Original and so polish the Table till by its shining smoothness it become a Looking-glass rather than a Picture You mistake if you think the Blind but withal quick-sighted Eyes of Lovers are blinded no they are only mask'd and so see the more clearly and securely through their Avenues and Loop-holes You may rather think them contracted as the manner of Archers is that they may take the surer aim When they stand fix'd on one object 't is not through blindness that they see not the rest but a disdainful and voluntary neglect When the eyes weary themselves with gazing on one single object and as 't were of set purpose grow Bankrupt and lay out their whole sight upon it that they may never see any thing besides this is not to be blind but to see too much If the entertainment of Philosophy be nothing else but to contemplate Idea's sure no employment so Philosophical as to Love Yea more if every one Loves just as much as he understands then what is counted the Madness of the affections is indeed an argument of knowledge to be vehemently Love-sick Hear the Stratagems and Sieges of Lovers equal to the Conquests over Kingdoms Look upon the train of Captive Ladies daily led in Triumph as so many Living Trophies of their Wit who must first be deceiv'd before they can be taken and be brought unwillingly to what they desire So much would they rather be wheedled than plainly lov'd and be circumvented with wiles and subtilties before they are with embraces Think if you can what Enthusiastic Strains are inspired by a Mistress what an Itch of Poetry she excites in the Passions of a Wounded Breast and teaches it to make Wanton Sallies in Odes and Epigrams Ambitious of such an Enthusiasm you will cry out with the Poet O grant I may be in Love And Love has reason in its madness over after invoke Cupid instead of Apollo You maliciously err whoever you are that take the mysteries of a Divine Ecstasie for the Wild Ranges of an Unhing'd Mind Love does most luckily without any Consultation dispense his Motions and with an un-erring Hand darts forth Humane Hearts though Blind and so not capable of hitting the Mark by aim For his Hand is directed not by the Eye but some Divine Instinct neither is he steer'd by Reason but acts by somewhat more Divine like God himself who is not endow'd with Reason which would betray him into Error but prosecutes whate're he does by a most Infallible tendency and owes not his Wisdom to the Chain of Deliberation How agreeably do these two things 'T is peculiar to a wise man conspire to Know and to Love Since it seems the Prerogative of God and next to him of a Wise man who knows as certainly as the Oracle who 's best for to Love any besides the best is impossible This is that only He who passes a Judgement as even and as true as the Laws of Fate He cannot be said to Love who is mis-led by his opinion and who makes an unsuitable choice or which one time or other he must necessarily Hate For the Union of Lovers knows no more how to admit of a Divorce than the most Solemn Marriage The Virginal Zone is no sooner unloos'd but there succeds another Knot which like the Gordian one may perhaps be cut asunder but never unty'd For although Death can do the former yet it cannot the latter The Love does not dye with its departed Object His Consort will not seem old to him when indeed she is and that Spring of Beauty which is now faded into an Autumn will be kept in his faithful mind fresh and verdant and he will Love with his memory at least his now disguised and almost unknown Wife Nay never after the last separation his Love is perpetual ever ever surviving friend shall live in his tenacious memory as if he were divided from him only by the little intervals of absence And as often as he embraces his sweet Phantasm he will not yield him dead You do nothing ye Fates we still continue our Commerce we are still a loving Couple you have robb'd others of a man but me not so much as of a shadow Before we had but one Soul betwixt us but now but one body He is lodg'd in me as in his Star or Orb. And now Love seems to have made its Circle always returning whence It is a Circle it began resembling the motions of Heavenly bodies it so ends in it self that it always begins For he is no Lover who can one time or other Love less or not at all Love has not as other things any end or satiety neither is it like hunger and thirst to be allay'd by its aliment It is never glutted with its gratifications but is still whetted on with fresh delights and as if the object were alwaies new the Lover enjoys a daily Epicurism on his admired face There is a continual spring in his delights a continual thirst in his appetite and he always finds out something more to be fond of He is always in motion like the heavenly bodies and a Contemplative mind never rests never grows weary but is refresh'd by his labour He makes the end of one kindness but a step to another till inflam'd with a double ardour he first dotes on the person
view the Image of his corrected splendor and to refresh it self with feeble delights and shadows Whatever that is whether a Ray of God or a reflection of an Idea or an efflux of the Soul which under the shew of Beauty captivates the eyes and mind must be something Divine since 't is the priviledge of man alone to contemplate and be affected with Beauty Pardon me if I also ravish'd with the Love of Beauty am carried beyond all bounds and leave even my self behind through the extravagance of transport I am willing to abide here where I find Love inthroned in the most Beautiful part of the world in Heaven And now I can't forbear venting my anger on those mortifi'd and Cynical Ghosts whose Sage Morals license them to dislike every thing who condemn all the Erratas of humanity as the intemperance of solid benevolence who inveigh against this god Cupid as the ringleader to all luxury and voluptuousness and the Ingineer of all Tragick intreagues and vallainies whom we find our Proxy to gain us immortality and the Author of a Divine nature This is the reward of all Simple and mutua Love simple and barren Love which it receives from its own luxurious bounty for where there is no return of gratitude Love has the same revenue with liberality it has repay'd it self 'T is an abundant reward to have well deserv'd And yet there 's a Love and Love for Love are Twins born and growing up together greater reward than all this sought after by Love to be paid in kind when souls growing warm together intermingle flames and light awakened by mutual allision as one piece of Iron whets another and cherish their ardours by a reciprocal propagation They live to one another mutually by an exchange of spirits and in the bottom of their hearts just as in that of transparent water their faces answer each other by repercussion Certainly nothing is more sweet than to Love or to be lov'd except this to Love and to be lov'd For when our Love is unhappily misplaced and such creatures are betroth'd to our Embraces which either by a certain necessity of Nature or by their own fault are ingrateful When with nuptial solemnity Xerxes embraces Plato Polydorus a Statue and Lesbia a Sparrow not more wishing for than undergoing a Metamorphosis and find the Poetical fables verifi'd in themselves being all over animated with the Deity of Love and by the plastick power and assimulating affinity of affection converted into trees stones and Birds 't is not the least of all felicity when there is no other way of Society but that the same person personate a Companion to himself to feign dialogues answers and delights proper to ones self and so to model our happiness to our own not anothers liking Methinks it pleases me to see the not altogether fruitless affection return upon its Author where that is the refuge of delight which in Amours is esteem'd the chiefest to Love again our own Love and like the Sun enjoy our own heat by reflexion at least Neither does less pleasure but more honour attend that other lot to be belov'd Whence men more liberally court others affections than they impart their own For this is like gods to extend their Dominions in mens hearts without the Pageantry of a Sceptre This displaies the greatness of our fortunes and Vertues and makes us oftener receive the officious services of others than perform any our selves Thus the Trophies of your excellencies become conspicuous according to the number of Captive Clients which follow your triumph But when on both sides there is an equal contention of officiousness when there is a Duel of Courtesie not with complemental Ostentation but with the highest shame of yielding and fear Mutual Love is a parity of reciprocal benevolence Aristotle of less obliging then arises that parity of reciprocal benevolence which Aristotle honours with that well known name though of rare instance friendship Venus felt these reciprocal tides at her birth and so still continues a flux and reflux of affection That equality which that Leveller justice has been a long time to no purpose endeavouring with her Sword and ballance Love with ease introduces into the world sâ—â—ce it always finds equals or makes them so Sometimes the distances of fortune and merit cut off the bands of friendship oftner than those of place Jupiter must descend to the earth and put off the Raies of his Divinity if he be minded to enjoy the Embraces of Mortals And so he did nay for fear lest he should not be familiar and despicable enough he degraded himself below a man into a Brute Deity and so procured himself easie admission sooner by contemtibleness than majestick horrour If you will be reverenced Sextus I sh'ant Love you The story of Semele sufficiently informs what a great and proud punishment 't is to endure the Society of a God The Moral 's good An officious cringing Officiousness to great persons is flattery and ambirion not Love and fidelity to great personages sweet only to the unexperienced comes nearer to flattery than benevolence and is always suspected as an insinuating Art of bespeaking more than we offer 'T was your ambition which brought you hither not your sincerity so that you deserve a place among my servants not among my friends Now therefore we are at an equal pitch when I disappoint you of your hoped for dignity as you would have brought me down from mine Yet sometimes 'T is servitude not friendship we find humble Superiors ambitious of condescension choosing a reflection upon their Scutcheon before a diminution of their Courtesie Alexander acts no longer the Emperours part and loses those titles in Love which he had won in Conquest But he loses them with greater glory to Hephestion content that Hephestion might be King so that himself might be a part of his Kingdom He makes over all those honourable courtships which he received from others to Hephestion while he serves his Hephestion he seems to enlarge his territories and to enjoy another world We all acknowledge Love to be a sweet and restless desire of pleasing them who either by accident or their own Vertues or lastly our own mistake have any way gratifi'd us It matters not much as in life so in friendship what e'r is the Origin of the heat It inlivens the heart with a never the less durable and daily motion The importunate votary resolving to tire or overcome you or indear Barclay's Icon Anim. and please you heaps one good turn upon an other and when there is no more room for his officiousness he serves with empty endeavours and looking still like one doing good obliges by his very Well meaning countenance He cautiously fathoms the inclinations of his friend by heedful experiments and for the very sollicitous fear of displeasing deserves to please He thinks it of great use sometimes to have displeas'd that so he may either hate
now look like gems and dart forth glimmerings as well in a Rock as in a Lovers Ring With this sweet art while the Sea partakes as clearly of the motion as the image of the Moon it enjoys the intelligence of the Celestial Orb as its own With this lovely envy while the Steel is drawn with admiration of the Load stone and by and by with mutual breathings and Nuptial Embraces exhales its pretious Soul as if 't were now it self become a Load-stone exercises Charms of its own and draws other things as much as 't is drawn it self There is indeed in nature as well as in common life an ambitious indigency and cringing to Superiours Neither is there any thing more regarded in another than the eminency of its order Had we no such thing as a Philosopher yet we have Philomathematical Waves which shew the wain of the Moon with more certainty than Almanacks and Ephemerides We have Astronomical Flowers which teach us the motion of the Sun and instead of striking watches give an Articular notice of the declining day Had this Theater of the World no Philosophical spectator to consider its rarities with Scrutiny and Inspection yet all Nature her self is inamour'd to admiration with her own Beauty and as both the eyes of the World so both Worlds speculate each other by course and feed themselves with mutual interviews And this lower seems to aspire to the dignity of the higher with the same ambition as is used by the commonalty of Spain when they Emulate the Grandieur of the Nobility and with the same art which the Commons of Rome used when the Plebeians were admitted to match among the Patricians The Author of Nature has made the welfare of things too much his concern by committing Besides these there is a farther end of desire in man divinity and Eternity the world to the Tuition of Love so that now an idle and unactive Deity will either not be own'd or contemn'd But whereas other things are of such a composure that they can only receive and want man alone knows how to Love Nature has shadow'd forth in them a rude semblance of affection only that she might make a prelusory specimen of that in viler materials which she intended to compleat in man with Elaborate Accuracy Although I must also acknowledge that the affections of men leisurely improve according to the same degrees and proportions as they themselves do and as if they had several births are first endow'd with life then with sense and at last with reason and that Love which is at first callow and creeps by the instinct of Occult sympathy by and by is Fledged with desire and at last improves into humanity and reason which was before only Brute tendency or the predominant bias of an Element For when the as yet tender warmth only broods on the breast much less has hatch'd the glowing sparks the desire scarce gives credit to it self When the The various degrees and ages of all Loves mind is newly smitten and is hardly yet Conscious either of the wound or the Author of it she feels just such innocent prickings as Children do from the Rupture of their Gums when they breed Teeth Then you may see a pretty specimen of Infant simplicity those who have been born scarce long enough to view one another a little beginning to sigh together as one Myrle-tree whispers to another For in these early expresses of Passion these Infant Lovers don't understand the Air which they ventilate in the groves of Venus while they wind Embraces insensibly and like those who lazily stretch themselves naturally seek out for something to rest their extended arms on You may now if you will call these the insinuating arms of an Ivy or the winding branches of a Vine But assoon as they improve their Love so far as to imprint and devour smacking Embraces you don't see men but Ring-Doves When they breath out their querulous Amours in wanton chidings you hear Turtles as being now a little more by Nature disposed to benevolence so that they affect others with sweet and innocent fondness and imitate the kindness of the Dolphin or Lizard But men of an adult Flame are seiz'd with a more generous impulse though blind By this blind impulse we are carried upwards like Doves of Venus with seal'd eyes and with a most vigorous endeavour ignorantly aspire to Heaven as to a Nest Thus the very defects of Lovers The kinds of Bastard Love and errors of Lovers shew a disposition greedy of Divinity and the errours of this one Passion aspire to something immortal So that even that more impure itch which derides the Barren marriages of Vertues and Copulations of Souls which seeks something to fill its Embraces and adores the Planet Venus though threatning its birth-day with Storms and Shipwracks of life seems yet to be inflamed not so much with the Torches of Hymen as with the desire of Eternity While with such Ardency it longs to out-live it self and by a long series of posterity to patch up as well as it can a successive immortality Even he whose friendship is purchas'd with a a supper whom like a Brute Creature a bit does befriend to you who is in Love with your Kitchin not your self though he Loves to the proportion of his stomach And he who values a Even they who Negotiate in the Merchandise of affection aspire to something divine man after the same rate as he does a farm attending on him with the same sordid expectation as he does on his field who uses his friendship as a thing of profit with a mercenary mind and still reckons himself among his friendships Why this latter well skill'd in the value of Love uses it as money but as a Divine Coin wherewith we men Negotiate with the Gods and enrich our selves with a Deity And the former enjoys his Love to Luxury and Banquet for he thinks it the Nectar of his Supreme Deity as well as of Venus Both of them truly with less Covetousness consult their own profit either he that seeks a Patrimony They are more liberal who do good of their own accord by his affection or he that diets upon it than he who hastily discharges his sinking Ship of her perishing fraught and by a free disbursement of his goods transfers them out of the reach of Chance or Fate before they perish Who although he expects no returns nor sells his gifts yet has already receiv'd a most ample recompence the very Collation of a kindness and although he has given never so much yet has laid up a greater Treasure for himself the Vertue of beneficence So that to give great largesses and such as modesty oftentimes forbids to receive does the most advantage to the Author either by rendring him awful that nothing mean will be expected from him or by representing the benefit more necessary and natural than either Rain or Sun-shine So that from him as
from the Sun benefits will be exacted as Debts and he will seem to do only according to Custom and Duty as often as he acts generously so that all gratitude will be taken away through the frequency and ampleness of his Collations What shall I think of him who seeks to please not to Love me Whom I repair to as a Summer-bower that may afford me shade and security but which is of no use to me in the rage of Winter Whom as many of us as have any severity mixt with our Loves are wont to Alarm with this grave Apothegm A friend as a Wife is a word of Dignity not of pleasure You have Friend and Wife are names of honour found out a new way of being Libidinous without Embraces you have deflowred your Love with this kind of Lasciviousness worse than that of the stews Industriously to please is the trick of wheedlers and the luscious venom of a Pander To treat too daintily is a kind of angling To fawn with emulous officiousness is like a Wooer and belongs rather to the rudiments of Love than the life of Lovers Far be 't that you should take that Creature for a friend who is a torment to you while you desire him and a tediousness when you possess him And yet you are not much out if you think that all Lovers wander in the fields of Elysium and that Flowers spring up where ever they tread No other are the joys of Heaven than to Love and to be lov'd no other are the joys of Earth That Divine Ardor which makes the Empyreal Heaven to be what it is and wherein will consist the happiness of the future life must be the only Solace of this In all other things we are Passive these we only enjoy and delight in which are the Issues of our desire and choice and which in those There is no pleasure anywhere but from Love other uneasinesses divert our pain Thus have we seen in a Tempest the two Brothers rejoyce in a greedy concourse bringing as much joy to them selves as to the Mariners Congratulating their united beams whereby they lose each other in a mutual embrace and thence become two again Thus have we known the Votaries of Venus surrounded with a Cloud brought like Brides under a Veil of silk with more secret triumph to their joys We confess there is something in Love more powerful than calamities more magnificent than honour more splendid than Riches more charming than pleasures for whose sake we contemn all these yea for whose sake we do not contemn them but have them in the greater veneration It does so solely please that by it all things else though never so vile please exceedingly It has such a priviledge of Majesty that nothing can disparage it that it clears from infamy and sooner reflects a lustre on the greatest reproaches of life than it can be sullied from any thing else Hence 't was that this was added a thirteenth to the labours of Hercules and serv'd as an ingredient to make up his praises that he not only brandish'd his Club but held a Distaff with which though he had tam'd all other Wild Beasts yet one Monster still remain'd to be subdued whom only the instruments of her own Arts can Conquer a Woman Why do you wonder so much at the inviolable Rays of the Sun since Cupids Torch can also enlighten even the most sordid things and yet remain untainted Why then does the hunger bitten mind so eagerly and to no purpose hunt after something Divine in other things since it has it at home For indeed whatsoever we Love is to us a Deity Whatsoever you desire that 's Jupiter Is it so What does that sordid Lover who admits no consort without a Dowry kiss buy and count Jupiter imprinted on his Money Yes but 't is Jupiter shining under a covert of Gold What and does the Libidinous voluptuary itch after Jupiter Yes but 't is Jupiter turn'd Stallion under the form of a Satyr and converted into the Semeleian flames Yes and so does that delicate Trencher-friend sup upon Jupiter but in the shape of a Swan and lurking under the soft Down of Luxury He lusts also after Jupiter but 't is that of Ganymedes steep'd in Nectar and Ambrosia Now I sound the depth of the business neither am I quite deceiv'd by those Rhetoricians of the Gods the Poets Now I perceive that they were not the Loves of Jupiter but our own which clothed the Deity in such unworthy forms But because slippery and wandring Love never rests till 't is arrived to the Pinnacle of perfection or by a pleasing delusion thinks so at least being always a Companion of the best and Love is only of one greatest or what appears so to this it must always adhere in this always acquiesce as the Heaven of its soul the Center of its fire The Lover will not I presume be at leisure to entertain the Charms if there can be any of a new felicity neither will he find in his heart to Love another no nor himself He will ever complain of the disproportion between his power and his desires and that he is wanting to him whom he surfeits and wearies with excess of fondness And after he has thus made over all his affection to one and still thinks he has not done enough he must needs have as little Courtesie left for all others as a Monk or Stoick Begon thou Monster of Syracuse who hast invented a new Tyranny to thy other cruelties a Pair-Royal in friendship Who wouldest not kill a pair of friends but divide them and corrupt their fidelity by interception of it from a Tyrant converted into a Rival But tell me Tyrant suppose you were assumed a third Lover into the League of this pair tell me which would you prefer in kindness You must needs incense the other now on the same score jealous of your self But if you will distribute your kindness equally suppose one of them brought to execution will you die for this or live for the sake of the other You stand like a dubious needle between two Loadstones by the neighborhood of two resolutions detain'd from both The distraction of your wish prompts you at once to live and die Thus the Pendulous Lover about to adhere to neither and to both is undone by this equality of affection One exacts tears from you the other an effusion of laughter The partiality of your officiousness to one makes you injurious to the other So that your mind distracted several ways like Metius between the contrary draughts of Horses seems deservedly to suffer the punishment of his perfidiousness Thus it happens as often as you undertake to be a Pluralist in affection and at once to Love whom you can hardly see at the same time unless you were squint-eyed or double-faced Do but consider the dominion and compliance which is in Love Here the new Eteocles and Polynices must duly command and serve by
prescribe any other measure The measure of benevolence should be to know none to benevolence besides this one to know none at all or circumscribe any other limits than those which are mark'd out by the desires of Lovers Let him not Love at all and I am sure I cannot imprecate a heavier Curse who tempers his affection and is not rather ruled by it who warily Loves to such a set degree as if ready to hate or who deals out his affection in proportions giving and receiving favours with a pair of scales He may perhaps return Love but not Love directly who answers his Lover just as he pledges his Companion precisely so much And now I stand amused with a long veneration like a sweetly confused Inamorato who has wasted all his eye-sight upon a Divine form and is uncertain even after the greatest Criticism of interview which part of the Soveraign Beauty first deserves his admiration and is arrived only thus far to admire his own astonishment and to pay equal adoration to all the excellencies as if every one were supreme and variously to assent to the praises of parties differently affected I hear Dionysius defining Love to be a The definitions of Love It is a Circle returning from good through good to good Dionysius Circle returning from good through good to good And I confess 't is comprehended in this ingenious Emblem Hence I look upon a Ring not only as a pledge but an Hieroglyphick of Love Cupid represents to me this Circle while he is bending his bow together with the semicircle of his own body This Circle is decypher'd to me by the continual heat of Lovers which with the blood is carried round according to the modern Tenet of Physicians in a Circular motion 'T is like the Elementary fire where the immortal flame feeds it self and is its own fuel whoever loves that which he hath lov'd retreats by a spherical motion in his own track and he that loves only that he may Love the same returns upon himself closes up himself Aristophanes tells me and I easily The whole Mystery of Love consists in being reduced to that from whence we were Aristophanes believe him that the whole mystery of Love consists in being reduced to that from whence we were For I see all things by a natural motion retire into their principles And perhaps those Magnetick Charms which they fansie to be lodg'd in the whole earth are found by Philosphers Mariners and ships to be only in the Native Country The Law of nature obliges us to bestow our lives upon those from whom we receiv'd them and by a certain series of piety and Scale of alliance to adore those three names dearer than our lives our Country Parents ' and God I know not whether I may call man like Oedipus a blind and incestuous Lover or rather provident and pious who is always inamor'd with something of his original and is as cordially affected toward it as to his Parent Neither is he much mistaken who takes that for his Parent whence he dates the rudiments of a new life and by a kind of revival renews his Nativity at the expence of an extraordinary Love Thus to resign up our souls is to retrieve and remake them But you O Thales by leaping into the water and you Empedocles into the fire the one by chance and the other out of design made too much hast to resolve not only Philosophy but the Philosophers themselves into their principles and to plunge the vital particles of your souls into their Elements But yet so the errors of this Philosophy excuse those of the affections and since our hungry Souls as well as bodies are nourish'd with those things whereof they consist you 'd swear the Drunkard had a liquid Soul and the Tyrant a bloody one infused into them you 'd swear the fordid misers were just inlivened out of the mud and that the Stoical and barbarous were hewn out of a Cragged Rock and so still continue the Statues of men But if we fansie with Aristophanes in Plato that from Plato's Conviv the common seminary of souls or from the joynt Society of a man heretofore double-body'd the familiar and Colleague-Souls were sent into the world methinks this they render probable while like the parts of a divided insect they seek out for th' other half or when they run into embraces at first sight as persons mindful of their former intimacy So that the Platonick man is now all over memory whose Love as well as Philosophy is nothing else but Reminiscence Yea rather whose Love is the very The first Philosophy is the desire of Eternity Diotima exercise of Philosophy for I willingly and deservedly ascribe both to you Diotima that is to elevate our heaven-born Souls together with their bodies to a perpetual intuition of Heaven just as the bird of the Sun is fed only with his Raies and to vegetate them with a desire of Eternity This is that Mysterious ardour which makes us Mortals always emulous of Divine perfection out of Love with the meanness of our condition and for a remedy hastens to strip the man of the part which is frail Hence as if we had a Legion of eyes we take a prospect which is more than the Sun himself can do of both ends of the earth at once Hence Amphitryo could at once discharge the affairs of his House and of the Camp and though remote accompany his Wife and that not as the Poets will have it in the fiction of disguise Hence circumscribed with no bounds either of time or space we live another life after the first either in our friends the Guardians of our now alienated souls or in our Children the Heirs of our transmitted life both lending and borrowing breath While I muse on these thoughts The desire of enjoying Beauty Plato Plato offers me a nearer experiment And I presently turn'd Platonick swear that this Cupid though never so blind and content only with thought wherewith he persues Divine Objects and yet born from the sight is nothing but a desire of enjoying and forming Beauty in something Beautiful The truth is we are willing to enjoy not being able always to content our selves with the barren delight of Contemplation and Courtship that from the conflux of associated splendor as from the Conjunction of Stars the Glory and influence may encrease and our Star improve into a Constellation And as Pictures so faces of too Majestick Beauty whose blandishments are above our fortune and hopes affect the spectators with some pleasure no desire And that portion of Beauty which recreates the sight with the sweetness of Symmetry and Complexion only will find more spectators than lovers as setting forth the prettiness and graces of a delightsome prospect such as are better represented in painted than living faces Nothing that 's barren and dead excites vital affections nothing that 's inanimate influences the Soul Neither is there greater
limbs into legible Characters that by the likeness of souls others may be allured till the Original form being observ'd and the Deity within discover'd the earthy mould be disregarded For alas what an inconsiderable thing is that Beauty of a face which entertains our eyes with the daily spring of fresh graces which we shew one to another in a rapture and although possess'd with a Rival concern yet call in Auxiliary votaries to share in our admiration We are taken only with a superficies a Colour a reflexion of light yea a most empty shadow which if we gaze long upon it wears away and disappears before our eyes And what a poor little thing is that frame and Structure of Limbs delineated as with a Rule and Compass If that be all Beauty is consummated in the consonancy and symmetry of the complexion and lines or frame of motions Statues may boast of a neater outside than man and the house of a more elegant model than the inhabitant What an inconsiderable thing is that motion which lends such a graceful mean to bodies imitable by no Painters Suppose it more soft and uniform than the Downy glidings of the Celestial Orbs or of time Careless loose and unaffected it has this only Apology for its meanness that while it pleases lest it should also prove tedious it passes away extinct even while it begins But all this while I seem too partial to the errors of Lovers and the Encomiums of Beauty by supposing all that which All the grace of the body is either imaginary or the paint of opinion is thought handsome in bodies to be the shadows and imitations of a real decency and not rather the dreams of imagination and the paint of our own opinion For 't is not that which we behold but what we imagin to our selves that we are in Love with Tell me if you can whence it comes to pass that the same face is of so mutable a Beauty as to cause an aversation in others when they meet it which to you transcends the Beauty of the Stars Whence is it that some are mightily inamour'd with the soft and hypocritical resemblance of the other sex and others again are more taken with the somewhat more than masculin horror of an unpolish'd countenance Whence is it that to some what is so little as almost to escape the sight is the more acceptable under the notion of delicacy and prettiness and to others again that which is ample and fills the eyes seems the only comely and Majestick object Why the changeable colour of a pretty face like Pigeons necks borrows an imaginary Beauty which it has not from various aspects and diversity of postures I 'll deliver my thoughts with freedom What ever that appearance is which feeds the eyes 't is either imaginary and of such a nature that we must needs lose it when awaken'd Or if real 't is unworthy to detain the soul out of our sweet dream or if real 't is unworthy to terminate our souls and should only provoke inform and send them farther How can that strike so gratefully on the mind which the eye only enjoys and knows not how to communicate For the contagion of no Beauty except that of the mind is so great as to transcribe it self on the beholder as on Water or a looking-glass It must someway resemble God and our own souls that is be incorporeal whatsoever It must be of kin to God and our own Souls that is incorporeal what ever lodges in the mind Even that Beauty of the body is immaterial does but sojourn in our minds much less is adopted by the affections Although even that very air of the body of how little force soever be also something immaterial and like the soul rules at large all in all and all in every part 'T is easily to be seen there is some efflux Ray and I know not what vigor either of the soul or of an Idea which running through all the actions diffuses it self throughout ever member and assimulating all things to it self collects the Systeme of graces into the face where they settle as in their center Here the Boy Cupid keeps his Court But because the shadow of Beauty breeds only a shadow of Love enthroned in the Metropolis of Beauty here he plays with the beholders kindrles his darts from the wanton flashes of eyes and hurles living flames Here indeed Love plaies in his minority but when grown to maturity he changes both his Camp and Artillery first seating himself in the middle region between the mind and the body the Aspect he sports innocently in the confines of both But by and by he advances up to the Soul and enjoys a pure and seraphick flame or descends to the body and like a Meteor deceives with a gross and fallacious blaze And to use no more undervaluing invectives this one thing abundantly confirms the infelicity of this Passion that it always has more influence on the absent than the present and that the sight or Embrace of a body does always drive us either to loathing or madness What God is this which The error of this Passion is punish'd with selfdisdain Chastises the madness of erring Cupid with his own desires Who is' t compels him still to languish for what he enjoys most of all and so Passionately to refuse what just now he more passionately long'd for He protests these were not the joys he sought for but that while he stood unresolv'd what he should desire and follow'd the conduct rather of his eyes than judgement he lighted upon them by a blind and unthinking tendency But because these are the shadows of that which the mind hankers after she wings away presently to them like a bird deceiv'd with painted Grapes but with them as with phantastick food she 's rather In the body we adore the shadow of divine Beauty in the soul the likenss of â—…d in both a deity under a 〈◊〉 Type tormented than fed I must nevertheless acknowledge since they who haâ— rangue most sharply against it feel the influence more vehemently than they deny it that these shadows of Beauty will beget also shadows of Love And as in the Soul we adore the similitude of God so do we a certain shadow of him in the body in both we worship a Deity under a Type and by an ignorant devotion become Courters of Divinity For there 's Beauty whether a Ray o God or a reflexion of an Idea or an efflux of the soul is always something divine because 't is the property of man to love Beauty the same proportion between the mind and God as between the eye and the Sun from whose light it gains thus much that it sees and that it neither delights nor is able to see any thing else without the sight of him and yet can't endure to behold the fulness of his lustre and therefore loves to receive his Raies at second hand to
anger may be appeas'd without slaughter who does not like other gods require beasts but only chearful Votaries for Sacrifice and that he may not want Temples erects flaming Altars in humane breasts Nay the little god himself being converted into It is fire fire by a continual supply of flames takes care for his worship 'T is certainly so as often as I see the pensive Inamorato venting his Passion in deep-fetch'd sighs he minds me of the fire which is immured in a Cloud redoubling murmurs and thunders and at last expiring in a fume As often as I see him bedew'd with the sweat of tears and boiling over with groans I call to mind the flames of Aetna and Vesuvius breaking out among the flames of Snow and Ashes or methinks I see the great Chasms in the mid-sea occasion'd by the eruption of fire As often as the short-liv'd fire of a counterfeit passion displays it self in imaginary and Scenical flames I then consider in man fictitious blazes fires resembling those of the Celestial Lamps Meteors of affection Again Love in this respect resembles fire in that it serves only to the benefit of men and the worship of the gods Again in that it heats and inlightens our fancies insomuch that Apollo as well as Bacchus owes his rise to the flames of Love Again in that it rages against the Bars of opposition gathers new strength from allaies and impediments and is fomented by injuries and provocations as fire by the aspersions of Water Then as to the properties of the Ethereal fire it burns and refreshes is immortal without fuel self sufficient for Love is content with it self being it s own reward it is inviolable not to be polluted by the Contagion of filthiness expiating and purging the Crimes which it cannot admit equalling the Virginexcellency of the Vestal flames Lastly it has this one quality more of the Celestial fire that for the security of the Universe it has obtain'd a supremacy of Station that 't is seated in the top of all guarding and enclosing the inferiour Passions In this one thing the parallel halts that it extends its vital influence beyond its Sphere to the production and Conservation of Animals Thus is Love parallel'd with the two purest and most powerful things either above or under the Celestial Arch God and fire But among all the Miracles of Mysterious Love this is the most confounding Occult Love like a subterraneous fire burns but gives no light outwards that often times in the interior parts of men as well as of the earth there glows a Subteraneous fire which spreads its Contagious Fever without the least outward Symptom of a blaze So that when we feel it burn and yet can't give an account how it came to be kindled unless any of us are of opinion that the flame was congenial to the breast and upon the conviction of this experiment grant the soul to be fire we deny it burns at all So loth are we to own our ignorance by admiring at the unaccountable harmony of souls equal to that of the Spheres when every one has contrary motions of its own and yet partakes of the same as if govern'd by a certain common Intelligence 'T is our daily wonder whence the strings of hearts as well as those of Lutes mutually sympathize with such consent that the trepidations of the one are seconded with the correspondent Tremor of the other We stand amazed at the surprising symphony unknown even to the Musician and swear these strings were heretofore Motion is consent as in bodies so in Souls taken out of or now skrew'd to a unison in the same entrails Wee 'l grant the Physicians their Paradox that motion is only a certain consent in bodies a no small advantage to their art being well assured it holds true in souls Neither let us any longer doubt to Hence Love is a Magician affirm with Plato's guest that Love is a Magician For how do souls kindle and conceive seeds of Love with a secret touch How do Lovers like Inchanters burn and melt the dissolving hearts of men by Images and representations How do Beautiful eyes like those of the Basilisk inchant the greedy beholder insinuating and interweaving their Raies with his till they knit Love knots and manacle him looking backwards with chains of Embraces What else were those soft allurements by which Endymion charm'd the Moon out of her Orb What else are those enticing groans but Magick murmurs Philtres of discourse and Amorous numbers What else but Charms of horrour which with a blast of air strike astonishment into the hearers What else are Love-tokens but Spells which instill a sweet Poison into those who wear them I know not whether the powerful attractions of the person lov'd deserve my admiration more than the Magick figures of the Lovers obsequious postures and inchanting blandishments against which there isnot as in other inchantments the remedy of a Countercharm neither indeed would we unbewitch our selves if we could or resist the pleasing methods of our ruin Truly all the force of Magick is in Love which is said to have the miraculous power of attracting things mutually together and changing their Natures because the parts of the world like the members of a great Animal depending on the fame Author and the Communion of the same Nature are joyn'd together by one spirit informing the whole and which is the most certain sign of union are collected into a Globe so that one part returns upon the other in a continual round 'T is by reason of this confederacy and secret Commerce of things that by the mutual attractition of Souls Love like a disease contracted by Contagion invades chiefly the healthy who yet by and by most willingly yield to the sweet evil And then the voluntary Captive more straitly hugs his soft and silken fetters then he is held by them and does as little understand the Embraces which he enjoys as the chain it self Methinks I feel the restless Calentures of Lovers more clearly than I describe them and seem to act my own argument The argument of the work is summ'd up by the by There is the same method of procedure in Philosophy and Courtship From kisses to Embraces from a shadow and obscure aspect to intimate Visions from affection to nature and thence to the cause of nature before I deliver it I remember heretofore when I was slightly deluded with dreams and Images and scarce knew what I sought after I more truely endured the various tides of my but newly raging Pason than I decyhper'd them How did the first glance of my Mistress not with a rude Image but only the shadow of it colour my blood fashion my thoughts fix an impression on my Soul print my mind with her own Characters lastly seize the whole man and assimulate me to her self And yet there appear'd in my distemper'd breast no otherwise than in a troubled fountain only an obscure and uncertain form
and shadow such as is feign'd to inhabit the regions of Death languid and shy flying all approaches and slipping through an Embrace By and by lifting up a little the Veil of Cupid and viewing with the greediness of a Wooer the Divine form of my just tasted felicity By so many steps and degrees are inquired after the manner of Lovers the effects and force of Love the dowry and parentage whom it is convenient to Love in what manner what measure for what end also the degrees and kinds of loving my ignorance as all almost is restless and inquisitive made me curious of examining every particular as what manners what Dowry what seat what descent For this uses to be first and last in the Cares and joys of Lovers as to recollect the first sportful essaies and rudiments of their Amours so to make enquiry into the years and honours of their Parents and to unravel their friendship back to its noble beginnings Although it be a sign of greatness Thence enquiry is made into the definitions and natures of Love Lastly we ascend up to the causes and Origin of Love antiquity and has procured Religious reverence to many things to have their Originals beyond the date of Chronicles seal'd up to Oblivion as to Eternity 't will be no Crime I hope to relate adore the beginnings of love Which is so happily obscured by that consecrator of things Antiquity that like Heaven it has found a fabulous Origin I hear some telling me of Praeludiums of Love which Souls act in the Proscenium of the other world before they enter upon the Stage of this I hear that souls descended from the Stars of their Nativity still imitate their manners and conjunctions That as often as the wantonly disposed Planets treat one another with Quintile aspects and burn with a nearer flame then 't is wooing time among men That as aften as they mingle Embraces with their Conjugal Raies then they kindle Marriagetorches here below And lastly that The friendships of men are not to be ascribed to the conjunctions of the Planets but to a threefold impulse of every mans nature they do not only shew us Mortals the way and prosper us in it but also make matches and betroth us here on Earth But to leave this fanciful argument my Philosophy assures me 't is not the heat of Heaven but that native one of the breast which congregates Homogeneous things and inflames men with an ardent Love of Society either out of a zeal for themselves or out of a desire to succour infirmity or a design of self-communication The first of these nature has imparted Either to a zeal for themselves to every one as a Tutelar Deity to each in particular and as a common soul to all in general Whence whatsoever resembles any part of a mans self becomes ally'd to him on the score of that similitude Hence Superiors are wedded to Inferiors in a mutual relation These straitly embrace the other as their pattern and defence The other protect these as their utensils and workmanship But the easiest association is between equals because free from the unconfiding awe which attends a Superior fortune and the jarrings of untunable dispositions Whoever are Confederate by the Communion of nature enjoy so much the more pleasure in their conversation because they were most closely united even before any personal contract Or to a desire of succouring Infirmity But if any suppose that companions are repair'd to as a defence of weakness that to Love is a kind of begging and that the Embraces of men like those of the Vine and Ivie only seek out stronger props for their support Let him observe that for the Patronage of this infirmity Love is feign'd to be a Boy and that children and women and whatsoever is of the infirmer sort are most prone to Love Let him observe that Vertues themselves are sought for by mankind only among the necessaries of life and that they are either instruments of ambition or reliefs of indigence Let him know that all the terms of Alliance are indeed words which import succour and that by those things which we honour with the most Sacred Titles are undestood only the various Commodities of life These are the things to confess the truth which we most lovingly call by the name of Brothers Sisters and Parents Neither is a friend esteem'd any thing better than an Asylum of refuge and a proper possession Lastly if we suppose men to be moved Or to a design of self-communication by a fermenting appetite of self Communication and after the example of God whose Image they bear to make a Donative of themselves we shall think what 's more Noble in its self and what 's more worthy of that Sacred and sociable Creature and what comes nearest to the Genius of Heaven more freely to impart than receive an influence For every man as other Creatures are made for him so he is born for more than himself only and accordingly is ambitious of accommodating himself to others As much as every one is ashamed to confess his penury So much does he delight to shew himself rich by Communicating his goods rather than desire the Alms of another Hence we see some Souls Covetous of doing good call in and adopt Associates to share with them in their felicity and take it as a great kindness to themselves to have an occasion given them of benefiting others So that 't is a greater pleasure to have a friend in your prosperity when you are in the Capacity to give than in your adversity when you must always be on the receiving hand My own Planet has not been such a niggard to me that I should want experiments of this liberality or should need a proof elsewhere Nay even this very acknowledgement of my gratitude condemning A favour is more joyfully bellow'd than either received or repaid it self because a favour is more joyfully bestow'd than either receiv'd or repaid does sufficiently evidence that the genius of humane nature has prescribed it self this sole way of doing of good and out of a magnificence of spirit has rejected the Laws of gratitude Since the former proceeds from fullness of mind the latter is extorted by necessity In the former there 's the glory and state of a Superior in the latter the reverence and modesty of an Inferior He errs even to pity dazled with the splendor of a more glorious fortune who cannot endure a kindness neither does he act ingratefuly nor proudly but only magnificiently bent in spite of his unperforming fortune and refusing to yield in the Combat of generosity declares be would rather have been the Author of the kindness which he had more munificently bestow'd in wish before he receiv'd it When therefore you see some born to serve others Mankind is divided into two sorts some born to serve others to protect and cherish There is mutual benevolence between them
What 'T is torment not society to be under a constant fear of displeasing to compose all things to the worst of Looking glasses that of a face since we can't to the others mind to order our Commerce with reverential concern to weigh our words like gold before we deliver them to present our selves at a set meeting with premeditate gesture and then there to behave our selves as in a Theatre But Why do I mention those consimilar Also under the name of similitude Love species which either nature art or Custom slightly imprints on our minds When 't is Love which gives all these a lively stamp by whose power alone the soul having long since took her leave they are actuated and enliven'd Happy is it for Lovers that persons may Love even against their wills Since your Lover is not only like but the same with your self he has stoln away you from your self unawares and without your leave There is no need that he demand returns of kindness and Debts of Love If this be nothing available with you that he is your Image your slave your proper goods that for your sake he parted with his soul and liberty If you nothing dread the Crime of cruelty and Murder yet by the necessity of nature Love kindles Love flame kindles flame Yet nature would not grant Love the power to counterfeit or if counterfeit to burn any otherwise than painted fire For though the face aspect and gesture feign never so industriously yet the simulation will betray it self as all painted things do either by a too emulous or a too remiss endeavour of imitation If you don 't yet acknowledge that Love is the price of a man yet at least that you may admit it to be so under the sordid Name of benefit know that it comprises in it self all the benefits which it bestows and which it cannot bestow and in wish more than all Without which I shall ascribe the benefits themselves to fortune and fate not to the man and shall think them rather found than receiv'd By which alone the poor man acts liberally as often as he gives nothing but wishes munificently Than which nothing greater is either expected from or render'd to Mortals by the Gods Here 's a Philtre of more influence than any herb If you will be lov'd Love But as it betrays meanness of soul to require and render reasons why we Love so that Love is more ingenuous which like some flowers springs up without any seed and has this of Eternity to exist without a cause and like Heaven to be mov'd by an invisible Intelligence We find now that that similitude whether manifest Similitude whether manifest or occult which is call'd sympathy is all Love or occult which goes under the name of Sympathy is all nothing else but Love Whence without any nearness or familiarity the near and familiar soul closes fast and squares exactly to another Just as Mathematicians say one plain body adheres to another inseparably united only by the Cement of conformity Nature seems to bring forth Twin-minds and to assign mates to souls as shadows and Genius's to bodies or as Nymphs Co-eval to their Trees Hence men in spight of their Ascendent undergo the same Stars and Fates and in all respects are Twins O the unparallel'd generosity of these well match'd Lovers a more Noble spectacle than a couple of Gladiators Where the Duel of liberality is all fought in Offices of mutual kindness In this one thing there is discord in their affections that both being over solicitous for each other are disquieted with hatred and fears Both as if tinctur'd with each others Choler see and judge the same Both as if touch'd with the same Load-stone tend to the same point in all their designs and endeavours The one represents the others face more faithfully than a Looking-glass The one imitates the others manners more punctually than a Parasite So that even he himself is not so much like himself While I was Scribling at this rate Cupid snatch'd my pen out of my hand and flew away with it THE END A Postscript SInce the Commission of this Book to the Press there came to my hand a Translation if it deserve that name of Effigies Amoris upon the perusal of which I was so far from being induced to recal mine that I found I had now a greater reason than ever to make it publick viz. the vindication of the excellent and much abused Author The Sacrilegious Translator is as much a stranger to me as he is to the Idiom of the Latine Tongue and therefore I shall deal more civilly with him than to give any particular instances of his failures and shall only say in general That between Omissions and mistakes the Author is utterly lost I had not said thus much had I not thought my self obliged to consult the Authors Credit more than the Translators lest any should judge the Original Beauty by the injurious representation of a false Glass FINIS ERRATA PAG. 15. l. 22. for polish r. pollish p. 19. for never r. even p. 67. l. 8. for one self r. ones self What other literal faults there are or false pointings the Reader is desired to give himself the trouble of correcting Books Printed for Tho. Sawbridge at the Three Flower de Luces in Little-Britain BP Sandersons Sermons Folio Bakers Chronicle Folio Guillim's Heraldry Folio Cooks Reports Eng. Folio Wilson's Christian Dictionary Folio Wanly Wonders of the Little World Caussin's Holy Court Folio Bacon's Advancement of Learning Folio
also a riddle himself He lives Amphibiously and is made up of contradictory passions wafted up and down by those alternate tides of his breast so that from him you may learn that contrary winds and Seditious Waters gave birth to Venus Is it so that the same person is Love-Problems enslaved and yet acts with all freedom is master of his own will yet at the same time subject to anothers and like the manumiss'd Slaves of Emperors purchases his power over his Mistress by a long Apprentiship of servitude and compliance Is it so that the same person by an happy contradiction is at once both dead and alive and Phoenix like makes himself a vital funeral-pile that he may revive more Nobly from his Flames Is it so that there is so much madness and maliciousness in the desires of Lovers as to wish them miserable who are At once malicious and benevolous most dear to them only that they may have an opportunity to relieve their misfortune First to inflict a wound that they may be the authors of its Cure To wish them deserted of their friends and fortune that they may succeed in their Room So that necessity rather than Courtship and merit may allure them into their embraces 'T is hard to know whether you have to deal with a friend or an enemy since the same part is thus enviously acted by hatred and too ardent affection 'T is somewhat unkindly done to deprecate the Love of others that he himself may engross all and to forbid and implead all other companions as encroaching on his peculiar nay more studiously to contrive how to prevent the growing wisdom of his dearest lest it should occasion a contempt of himself For 't is expedient No Love without some indignation that the person lov'd as well as the Lover be blind How also does the feverish and love-sick breast labour under the alternate Paroxysms of heat and cold Neither is there any Love without a mixture of indignation He curses and that deservedly too his pleasing tormentor that scorches him in these flames and snatches him from Himself but still like the fly he loves to sport about the dazling brightness and from so divine an Author to enjoy a Noble ruin The unhappy Lover seeks for himself out of himself and lingers on purpose to be caught that he may have the happiness of redeeming himself and knows no better way to be next to himself than to approach as nigh as he can to the possessour of his heart He finds it a difficult thing to Love and much more not to Love but the greatest difficulty of all is to acquiesce in the fruition of his Love He cannot be otherwise than miserable since the issue of his desires is as uneasie to him as the desires themselves So that should auspicious Heaven favour him with a succesful Love he presently wishes again for his former disquiets and seems to miss that pleasing Torment to sigh and languish So much more pleasant is it to be alwaies advancing toward an enjoyment ' than to be lock'd up in the Chains of an embrace And truly every one thinks more highly of his desires than of the accomplishment of them No condition certainly can make him happy who pines at fruition it self as depriving him of his sighs and pensive pleasures And this is the hard misfortune of all Lovers who though never so much the favourites of fortune yet can never be happy through the conspiracy of their own minds How strange is it that he should shun He loves and fears the sight of his belov'd the presence of that person as some boding object whose aspect is yet the very Manna of his soul and the raies of whose face he thinks more pleasant than those which saluted him at his Nativity What a Paradox of unhappiness is this to be master of ones wish and yet not be able to enjoy it Why 't is that majestic beauty which does at once invite and discourage 't is the brightness of that Serene face which like that of the Sun does at once refresh and dazle the beholder The poor Votary stands astonish'd with the dread of so great divinity which his own fancy has clothed with an awful horror thunderstruck like a Cyclops with bolts of his own forging His passion has Deifi'd his Mistress so that now the enjoyment seems too great and excellent to be made use of and he begins with a kind of envy to beome his own rival A Religious concern aws him from Embraces and the superstition of his Love whispers him in the ear that what he takes for his Deity must not be approach'd with Corporal Addresses but only by the Sallies of thought Certainly this passion is favour'd with the peculiar care of Heaven since it has mingled a melancholy trembling with its joys only to enhance and refine the pleasure Hence 't is that the desires so torment as He rejoyces and sighs by course that they also please and the sweets are so beset with prickles that they also allay our complacencies They are sparingly imparted to us yet so as Ladies faces which are only more openly hid through their thin silken veils So that 't is their fortune at once to have and want since they aspire at greater bliss than can possibly be enjoy'd all at once These little antepasts of Love to sit by to walk with to gaze upon and to speak to her are permitted only one at a time And after all this the languishing and restless mind satisfi'd neither with gazing nor conversing aspires unto something more divine which is both out of her reach and knowledge This is I know not by what destiny this is the proper infelicity of Lovers that because they never use to lay hold on any happiness but in a dream they Sceptically distrust their most real delights treat them as tenderly as if they were dreams and shadows refuse to be imposed upon again and are afraid even to enjoy This very passion which composes all other commotions of the Mind which civilizes Men Brutes and Philosophers is at variance only with it self and weds together things of an unlike nature in a jarring and untunable union Do you upbraid our He is at once effeminate and manly Lover with Effeminacy whose arms are fretted only with embraces who always breathes out either perfumes or sighs who is struck down with the menace of a sleight frown and the glance of an eye Know that he is also hardy and masculine who can endure his careful Vigils patiently expecting at the door all night for the day-break of his Mistresses eyes and exercising his mind with such an unwearied repetition of customary hardship till he become greedy of fresh encounters He delights to supply the dearth of fears and troubles by his fruitful imagination to turn the hazards of his health into so many arguments for his Love the paleness of his complexion into a mode of Courtship and