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
mind above it self and makes the man commence a Deity So that he deserves not the name Lovers can do all things even beyond their strength of a Lover who does not act beyond the Sphere of All and rise up to his wishes by Heroical undertakings No he is but a Novice in Love who does not act somewhat above himself in obedience to his Passion But you my friend with equity re-demand a draught of those affections which you Every one is the most pleasing spectacle to himself Whatever by shewing us to our selves doubles our embraces is highly dear to us But if it render us maim'd it becomes dearer by deformity it self your self first taught me though divested of your own grace and Elegancy Is it because it will be so delightsome to you to Contemplate the reflected Image of your self which is as lively engraven on my Devoted breast as on an Adamantine Table and will so please you to take a nice and Critical survey of me as far as I may appear the workmanship of your own Art Or is it because your image can receive no disadvantage from any blemish of the matter but like the Sun gilds even the spots themselves with its Luster that you will not like a peevish Lady be displeas'd at your Looking-glass for presenting you with deformities which are none of your own and as it were Burlesquing your face I know not how it comes to pass but we have a kind of Love for the very decrepit shadows which are the reproach of our own bodies and are apt to pay a more awful Veneration to maimed Statues So parents are commonly more tenderly affected toward their mis-shapen Children as if Nature had so order'd it as a Solace to Or from this very shew of injury or antiquiry misfortune and treat these Monsters of the Womb with greater reverence as if they were the presages of something extraordinary Whereas all others deride the transposed Mass of a distorted body the Anagram of a Deformity is a Sacred thing man Certainly there is something Sacred in deformity The Prophets thought it more Divine than any beauty more fit to represent the Grandeur of a Deity and render an Oracle Majestick It does at once scare Mortals and lecture them and challenges not so much our Love as our adoration Every one is the most pleasing object and Charming spectacle to himself and the eye seems to be priviledged with the pleasure of the mind while it reflects its sight upon it self being at once the object and the beholder Whatever that is which by shewing us to our selves doubles our embraces must needs be highly pretious But if it represent us maim'd and defective it acquires a new value from the very shew of injury or antiquity I am not therefore a little indebted to nature for making my mind a blank Table 'T is the Mystery of Love which cannot be express'd unless it be its own interpreter though for no other reason than this that it might receive so much of your Image whereby it might delight both it self and you But 't is a prodigy they say when Images once begin to speak And indeed I find it far easier to love than to express that which delights only to be perceived not to be shewn and because lodged in the recesses of the heart disdains to admit the Tongue to be its consort That which none of us have learnt from The Idioms of Lovers like those of Embassadors are delivered in inverted Characters precedents and instructions but then only begin to know when we we have all experimented it You would say Cupid were not only blind but Dumb since he renders every member of the body vocal except the Tongue Hence 't is that Lovers with more Eloquence communicate sighs than words as so many internunciary particles of vital Air and like Doves of Venus mourn sorth animated letters Hence They convese like Angels by intuition the will not the intellect explaining it self 't is that they keep a silent intercourse with their fingers now eloquent without a Pen and weave Dialogues in little Posies They hear one anothers mutual wishes and read one anothers visible souls by those vocal messengers of the affections affable Nods and darting Smiles Sometimes their significant gestures composed as it were of so many rhetorical figures court in a various and Mysterious Dialect Sometimes their ranging aspects are earnestly fix'd on one another as on strangers and while they seem to disown all acquaintance grow familiar by stealth Sometimes their contracted brows pretend a passion yet they do but all the while industriously fawne and designedly wait for delicate pleasures Sometimes their souls interchangeably gliding from their eyes take a Cursory taste of Bride-kisses at a distance and bring home their stollen sweets with Triumph 'T is at once their greatest boast and pleasure to remain undiscover'd Thus that which has so often appear'd in Theatres does still decline spectators and acts its plaies in its own disguise Methinks these Divine conversers enjoy a priviledge above the Laws of humane Commerce thus to hit one anothers meanings by most infallible tokens to pry into the very inward parts and to entertain themselves with a Divination rather than a Conference For they are mutually discern'd by the clearer vision of thought before they deliver themselves in words or know how to counterfeit and their wishes become visible like Phantoms but withall like some Pictures cannot be understood with less art than was used in the making They uncase themselves of their bodies like gods quitting their Shrines and not only expose themselves to view but intermix and infuse a soul into each other with every accent Their wandring and ecstatic souls freely pass to and fro as 't were within the same body and converse as softly as if in a Soliloquy This one passion cannot possibly be express'd but is as a mystery to be adored whose Rites like some of greatest antiquity among the gods are shrowded no less than Crimes with a bashful secrecy All Love has its veil and the Votaries of Venus All Love has its veil like Aeneas go surrounded with a Cloud and in the most popular concourse enjoy a concealment Neither does Cupid content himself with a single veil but loves to view wounded hearts in Masquerade and to secure himself invisible So that Love to whose friendly influence the orderly System of the Universe owes its composure has left it self in confusion bury'd in the Old Chaos and primitive obscurity Venus has hitherto avoided the Sun Love is an unexpressible mysterie as a betrayer of her secresie and to prevent discovery some god or other has shut up all kind of Love as well as that of Pasiphae in a Labyrinth where if it chance to be taken it appears all over intangled with Nets and Toiles or confusedly warpped up like a Monster Indeed every Lover is a Riddle and a blind Problem to It is
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
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
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
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