Selected quad for the lemma: master_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
master_n	father_n	king_n	servant_n	3,226	4	6.7708	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51723	Considerations upon the lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus by Marques Virgilio Malvezzi, one of the supreme councell of warre, to his Catholick Majestie ; dedicated to the King, his master ; englished by Robert Gentilis, gent.; Considerationi con occasione d'alcuni luoghi delle vite d'Alcibiade et di Coriolano. English	Malvezzi, Virgilio, marchese, 1595-1653.; Gentilis, Robert.	1650 (1650)	Wing M356; ESTC R12183	129,318	301

delight in being happy it requires a motion the pleasure is in the becomming so and he that oftenest and most times becomes such hath received most pleasure Such a happinesse doth that man attaine unto that humbles himselfe when he is come to the highest degree he enjoyes a perpetuall delight and yet doth not forsake his stand living in a continuall motion He alwayes humbles himselfe and is still raised up But even as Hippocrates was in mine opinion deceived judging it a good habit to be full of bloud so are they also who judge those men happy that are ful of bloud If any man had represented and set before the eyes of Caesar and Alexander the great and others who were then or are now like unto them the way and meanes whereby they had attained to their happinesse hearing nothing but outcries howlings and horrid lamentations seeing nothing but slaughters ruines of Cities desolation of Provinces Inhabited places made desolate fruitfull places barren themselves encompassed with fire dead carkasses and bloud it would surely strike a terror into them What happinesse is that then the cause of which affrights and terrifies even him that hath attained to it FINIS MARQUES VIRGILIO MALVEZZI HIS CORIOLANUS To the most Reverend Father Sforza Pallavicino Of the Society of Jesus Most Reverend Father I Dedicated my Alcibiades to King Philip the fourth I now dedicate Coriolanus to your most reverend Fatherhood What a happinesse do I enjoy to have the greatest Monarch of the world to be my Master And the greatest wit and most sublime understanding to my Nephew If these two lines which adorn my Writings were but graven upon my Tomb-stone they would fully satisfie my ambition namely HERE LIETH THE SERVANT TO KING PHILIP AND UNCLE TO FATHER PALAVICINE The goer by would therein read the happinesse of my birth and the worthinesse of my choyce And how can these my Writings be but secure protected by the greatest worldly power and defended by the greatest learning I beleeve my affinity will not derogate from mine attestation in witnessing that which your workes have manifested to the world I would I had almost said renounce my kindred rather than betray my judgement and leave being an Uncle rather than to not be a Trumpet of the eminency of your understanding and most rarely singular qualities I would beseech your most reverend Paternity to esteeme of that in mee which is none of mine namely your being my Nephew and I in the mean time will glory to have added the Title of Servant to the Character of Vncle So affectionately kissing your hands I rest Your most Reverend Fatherhoods most bounden Servant and most devoted Vncle Virgilio Malvezzi Bononia April 2. 1648. READER I Doe not professe my selfe so considerate as that I could not erre in mine advertisements neither am I so Vnchristian that I would have any mans reputation to suffer being any way touched by my ignorant mistakes I have therefore thought it good to recall two passages in a booke I set forth whilst I lived in Spaine called The Scale Whereof the one tends somewhat to the disparagement of the Duke of Savoy where I related there was a report that hee complied with the King of France in yeilding of Susa upon composition The other was concerning the Governour of the Bush through whose avarice J said the Towne was lost As for the first though I did not report it of mine own head yet it is so farre from truth that I should imagine I did wrong the sincerity Duke Charles used therein if I did not affirme the report to be false raised by some malicious and interessed persons As for the second I have seen the Cardinall Infante his Letters which testified that the Governour was wanting in nothing that belonged to him for the securing and defending of that place Therefore Reader if thou findest any other places in any parts of my books where I have plainly and unjustly touched any mans reputation I intend here to recall it in generall and will be ready to doe it in particular whensoever mine errors shall be made knowen to me And wheresoever the sense is dubious I shall desire to have it favourably interpreted CORIOLANVS CORIOLANVS his eminent vertues which mingled with some defect made it rather greater than equall obliges Plutarch to attribute the cause of the one to the goodnesse of his nature and of the other to the defect of education From the one he inferres that good soile may overcome bad tillage from the other that let the soile be never so good yet if it continually have bad tillage it will bring forth some bad plant The soile is the Minde the tillage Learning which being of a temperate complexion corrects all excesses and cures all contrarieties It raiseth those that are too low humbles them that are too stout where it findes any hard thing it softens it where any soft it hardens it resembling the Sun which with the same beames melts the Ice and hardens the mire This doctrine is so delightfull that it hath been able to attract the eyes which it could not dazzle I have a long time looked upon it with astonishment knowing that by consenting to it I should betray mine understanding and doubting lest by opposing it I should seem to question a truth and by arguing against education which hath commonly been approved of and most of all by the wisest I should be reputed rash and temerary though by right I should be applauded for it But if a good Citizen ought to expose his life to save the publick why should he not also adventure his reputation for the common service This will be also so much the easier because I mean not to direct my shafts against the thing it selfe but against the manner commending with others Education but not that Education which is commonly practised I represent unto my selfe two trees of the same kinde but in severall places one wilde in the forrest yet in good soile the other growing in a Garden amiddest the tendernesses of tillage and husbandry I see the boughes of the latter more beautifull and springing up its fruit fairer and bigger but the boughes ready to break at every blast of wind the fruit rot in a short time and affording but a weak kind of nourishment I see in the former rougher boughes lesser fruit and not so beautifull but the boughes resisting the fury of the North windes and the fruit not easily corrupted and strong for nourishment The roughnesse of the tree of the forrest yeelds I know not what kind of statelinesse so that Majesty added to the horridnesse brings forth a kind of reverence with delight The tendernesse of the other moves delight with its beauty but in such a manner that it doth in some kinde make the beholder grow tender with looking on it The tree of the forrest is like a vigorous sinewy well-limbed man with strong muscles A garden tree resembles a young and tender maiden

understanding and will and annihilate I was almost going to say his free will unman himselfe and grow beast leaving to emulate Angels and making himselfe like to a horse or mule Can he then thinke you alter nature gaine a new temperature and command that influence which hee cannot change The greatman came into the world amongst the Jews hee who indeed onely deserved the name of man presently his Country Parents and Tutors are enquired after His Country they know to bee Nazareth whence no good can come his Father they beleeve to be a Carpenter they doe not find he had any Masters or Tutors because they will not consent that man should found unto himselfe this greatnesse And not acknowledging it to proceed from Divinity because they cannot attribute it to the nature of his Country nor education of his Tutors they will have him possessed by a Devill What worser country was there then Bethsaida what better country-men then Peter Andrew John James and Philip. There could be no better Tutors and Mastors framed to teach vertuous actions and give good documents then Socrates Plato Aristotle and Seneca nor pupills and Schollars that could make lesse use of them then Alcibiades Dionisius the Titant Alexander the great and Nero. What father could be more Philosophicall then Marcus Aurelius And more learned and eloquent then the Romane Oratour and who was a more brutish Son then ●ommodus or more ignorant then Tullus Tullie forgot that which he had by experience found to bee true in his owne family and judging nature which for the most part erres to be alwayes in a certainty pretended th' Ethicks to be the work of Aristotles son imagining so eminent a Father could not have a son but of a soveraigne understanding And suffering himselfe to be overcome by the force of that argument the invaliditie of which he himselfe had experimented seemed to beleeve his sonnes case to be rather the limitation or exception of that rule then the confirmation of another contrary one He that sets downe the Probleme rests not at making learned Fathers infortunate in their children but goes further yet and affirmes ignorant men to be happy as if engendring of evill were the counterpoise of a good understanding and the comfort of ignorance the begetting of wisedome He frames hereby an exception to two approved rules Namely that no man can give that which he himselfe is not owner of And that goodnesse is of its own nature communicable One exception makes for ignorant men if they can bestow understanding which they themselves want upon their children And the other is adverse to learned men if they cannot communicate unto their issue the greatest good they possesse He saith also that the wise man is alwayes working with his intellect he is not attentive in the act of generation nor takes no great delight therein he ejects seed without spirit with a moderate pleasure contemplation distracting him from it But a blunt fellow wholly immerged in the act casts forth abundant vigorous stuffie seed and full of spirit But this proves rather the ability of the body then the vertue of the mind and that the one should have children of a soft and weake constitution and the other of a strong and robustious the greater abundance of seed causeth not more plenty of braine if the greater quantity of spirit produceth not a larger portion of understanding If it be a stuffie seed nature frames thereof much bone and a massie cranium and these being thick hinder the intellects contemplation and like a soggie and dark mist hide the beauty of the images from it The understanding requires mild and tender organs and there they will be heard subtile and cleere spirits and there they will be thick and cloudy The Philosopher from the robustiousnesse of the complexion argues a weaknesse of the intellect and concludes a strong one in a weake constitution How true soever the Probleme be in that part which concernes ignorant Parents I will go another way to unfold that which belongs to learned fathers because many though not peradventure most times we see it confirmed by experience Amongst creatures man hath the most braine amongst men the wisest or he that may be so The matter is viscous and cold it hath need of much aid to draw nourishment unto it and much spirit to digest it These are instruments of the naturall heat The soule makes them hers and taking them away from concocting raiseth them to contemplate if not against yet out of and beyond their own nature and because she would have them reach unto that which they doe not she subtilizeth them dasheth them together and tormenteth them they being subtilized evaporate tormented doe wast and weary are corrupted The naturall heat wanting for a time its instruments and having gotten it againe weake it workes not being made unable and growen feeble Man's proper place is the earth raised up into the aire he is disordered in the water he drownes in the fire he burnes The spirits place is the body which soaring above the matter afflicts and destroyes it selfe The seed according to the most eminent Physician for the most part proceeds from the braine if this be weakened it will not be powerfull to beget a male if there bee one begotten it is on the womans side Hyppocrates saith that those who are borne oftwo masculine seed prove Heroes Those that are borne but of one if it be the mans it foretokens greatnesse if it be the womans they become effeminate If this solution doth not please thee say that the forming power makes use of the seed to make the spermaticall parts and of the menstruous bloud for the sanguine Of mans weakened seed it will make a very weake braine of the vigorous bloud of the woman a strong liver and heart The rationall part will be inferiour to the irascible and concupiscible so the man will prove ignorant and vicious These documents will unfold severall Problemes This is the reason why brute beast are not so subject to catharres as men because they have a lesser masse of braine They need lesser quantity of spirits to concoct and preserve them better because they employ them not in contemplation A Philosopher by chance was deceived in the solution of this Probleme he attributed the cause to mans upright figure which being like a Limbeck easily attracts the vapours unto it He knew not that distillation is not onely by ascent but also by descent and in a plaine If a Limbeck be not like the figure of a brute beast it may be like a serpentine or winding still and the former distillation being more subtile the latter grosser a beasts head will be more aggravated then a mans Behold how the good sonne is the fathers glory and the bad one the mothers sorrow either because he is born of her seed or because the root springs out of her blood she predominating in the production of the heart and liver fountaines of all

satisfaction and love passe to the understanding How can you conceive vertue to be otherwise but faire and good if ●ou consider it as vertue and in what other shape can you consider it if it doth not appeare naked unto you Hate Rage and Envy cannot touch it they are mothes which stick onely on the garments wormes that inhabit putrifaction onely strip her of applauses wealth and all other vaine habiliments if thou wilt have her be secure and enamourthee This vertue which being once known violently stirres up love takes impression in mens hearts sometimes in the Great ones sometimes in the Peoples by very different wayes Some would have it remaine within the spheare of mediocrity some would raise it up to the concave of the Moone It is not alwayes envy which desires it low nor love that continually desires to have it exalted Sometimes it happens because a Great one would come into a strict league of friendship with it and the People would by its means enjoy an honorable servitude He that is possessed of such a noble gemme may communicate it to some by a relation of friend to friend to others of Master to Servant The one to be perfect requires equality the other to bee pleasing a kind of distance The greater the Master is the more honorable is the servant and the more cordiall the friend is the greater equality is between them But the connexion which the People hath with a person of eminent vertue is like a servant to his Lord and he is desirous to exalt him But the great ones is as one friends to another and he doth not desire to have him advanced Aristotle though he makes equality too necessary in friendship sometimes attributing it to superabundancy sometimes to want as if he discovered the truth out of its due distance and with a hindred and obstructed meanes seemes to contradict himselfe and pretend it to proceed from a great equality He either was or would be deceived he needed to have bin neither if he had affirmed that both these causes united did produce a most strict league of friendship Superabundancy and want if one of them alone be divided into two subjects brings forth either slavery or its image The poor is the rich mans slave and the Scholar the Masters and if he be not he is like some such thing Of two superabundancies and two wants there is framed an almost indissoluble bond of friendship The People that find in themselves nothing but defect goe towards vertue and desire to have it made great because they will serve it The great one who with the defect of vertue hath superabundancy of honour and wealth would find him out who hath superabundance of what he wants with defect of his superabundance and desires to have him low because he would make him his friend And if this latter comes also to be exalted to honours and wealth the other loses his superabundancy and remaines with deefct onely He hath nothing whereon to found the harmonious equality which produces friendship and because he abhorres the character of being a servant he hates that vertue exalted which he venerated when it was humble If there be a great pleasure in the world it consists in doing a benefit and if there be any greater it is in requiting it Therefore that must needs be exceeding great which is produced by the harmonious interweaving of abundance and defect where the benefit is at the same time done and requited Plutarch calls Coriolanus proud and impatient I agree to it He attributes the cause of it to want of study I dissent from it Because learning doth not onely not hinder these passions but according to St. Pauls saying produces Pride and according to Solomons Impatience I attribute it to his being born in the Roman Common-wealth which more desirous to increase then to preserve itselfe as it was made more of valour esteeme in its Cittizens thereof Patience Wherefore at the last keeping one still alive it fell for want of the other True it is that as it is not against the law of Patience that one upon occasion when there is need should violently oppose one that operates ill no more is it of the essence of valour to repaire all dammages and revenge all offences But the Romans cared not for these qualifications That Valour was more usefull to them which operated then that which suffered And because for that part of valour which lookes after revenge wrath was very usefull and very hurtfull to that which belongs to suffering it is not to be wondred that some of them had the vice of impatience coupled with the vertue of fortitude Seneca would not admit this doctrine of wrath he would have it rooted out as if our nature were so perfect that it wanted no instigation to make it operate well nor no curbe to keep it from working evill He that will see how man ought to make use of wrath which we also call choler let him consider what use nature makes of that choler which is called Bilis I meddle not with that part which is called Nutritive which subtilizes the bloud that it may the easilier nourish the parts which feeds the heart and the musculous flesh which tempers the cold of the Pituitous humour with Melancholy I will speake only of the Excrementall Bilis There is one naturall and another without nature or extra naturam One reserved in the Gall bagge that is to clense and absterge the pituitous humors together with the ordures because like a medicament it instigates and provokes the expulsive vertue to send forth that which is not to be retained and which being retained would kill The other breeds Dysenteries Diareas Deliriums Frenzies perfect Tertians and an infinite of such diseases And even just so it is with wrath One kind of wrath is a passion which like that unbridled Bilis running on furiously brings one to a precipice The other regulated by the understanding and set apart for some occasion serves to instigate the vertue of valour and as Natures excrementall Bilis is necessary to expell the excrements which nature would not move to doe if it were not instigated so likewise this wrath is necessary for man to drive that away from him which the understanding hath concocted and judged fit to be driven out But nature doth not make use of the Bilis onely to expell excrements onely but also of the serous matter to distribute the bloud of melancholy to excite the appetite to retaine the food and sustaine the body Of the sharp and serous humour to mixe with the seed to provoke to generation and preserve the kind Although that serous humour bee that which causeth Hydropsie though the Atra Bilis produces Quartanes Cancers Hypocondries Rage and Madness though that from the sharp subtile humour the greatest part of the Cutancall diseases have their beginning So the minde likewise makes use of Wrath for Fortitude of Ambition for Magnanimity and yet the one