Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	body_n	soul_n	true_a	7,689	5	4.8842	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31106	The learned man defended and reform'd a discourse of singular politeness and elocution, seasonably asserting the right of the muses, in opposition to the many enemies which in this age Learning meets with, and more especially those two, Ignorance and Vice : in two parts / written in Italian by the happy pen of P. Daniel Bartolus, S.J. ; Englished by Thomas Salusbury ; with two tables, one general, the other alphabetical.; Dell'huomo di lettere difeso et emendato. English	Bartoli, Daniello, 1608-1685.; Salusbury, Thomas.	1660 (1660)	Wing B988; ESTC R9064	173,867	431

they make only one Book They alone would make a Library Hinc oblita modi millesima pagina surgit Omnibus crescit multa damnosa papyro A hundred Volumnes of a thousand pages a piece Children of one sole VVit Births of one only Mind VVorks of one only Pen this makes one go high and stately And yet the Glory and Fame is not to be given to the number but to the worth of Books For how many times in a River of words there is not a drop of VVit in a Sea of Ink there is not one Pearl in a Forest of Paper there is not one branch of Gold All the VVork be it a hundred Volumns may say as the Echo of Ausonius Aëris linguae sum silia mater inanis Judicii linguam quae sine mente gero So that its a rare miracle of patience in the Reader if slinging away the Book he say not to the Author of it that of Martial Vis garrule quantum Accipis ut clames accipere ut taceas Books as saith Domi●ius Piso cited by Pliny Thesaurus oportet esse non libros Every word should be a Pearl every leaf a Jewel so that he which reads them should in one hour enrich himself with that which we have been ten years in gathering Aelas what is become of that precious custome and fortunate age when the Honey of the Sciences was put into the Wax on which it was then the custome to write with a Style with how much the slower hand the words were indented by the style the tenacity of the wax retarding it the more were they fixed on the thoughts and came to be better examined Now a-dayes the Pen carries the words in a slight from the hand and the conceits from the head and those and these the lighter by how much the lesse weighed That ostentatious Souldier in the Comick which said Ego hanc manchaeram mihi consolari volo Ne lamentetur neve animum despondeat Quia jam pridem feriatam gestem Lively expresseth the itch many have to Write and write much as it were to comfort their Pens that complain they stand Idle in their Ink-horns without wearing blunt with writing at the least one Book It is not the muchnesse but the goodness that is valued Books are the Souls whose grandure is not measured by the bulk of the body but by the nobility of the Spirit And most true is the Aphorism of great Augustine In iis quae non mole magna a sunt idem est esse majus quà melius The stones of mountains are 〈◊〉 bignesse yet a Diamond which is only saith Manilius Punctum lapidis as far surpasseth them in worth as they exceed it in magnitude If you were to speak to an assembly of a hundred of the most ingenious and Learned Men of the World would you say what came next to the tongues end without deliberation without refining and many times without substance and order Or rather would you not study to speak not onely Roses as they said of old but Pearls and Gold and do not you know that by the Presse you speak not to a hundred or a thousand but to all the Wisemen in the World that will read and hear you Therefore why do you not as Phocion that being asked why he stood upon a time so profoundly pensive answered That being to speak in publick to the Athenians he was picking his words one by one and examining them if there was any that he should omit Laudato ingentia rura saith the Poet Exiguum colito Honour the Gygantical Volumnes of others but strive not so much to imitate them in bulk as to surpasse them in worth Write one only good one but one that may be more worth than many One but one of which you may say as Ceres of her onely Daughter Numeri damnum Proserpi●a pensat 2 The other reason of the unfortunate success of Books is the undertaking to handle a matter and wanting a Wit proportionable I chanced to write an Octave or Epigram and presently I conceited that they called them Heroick Poems or Tragoedies Non ideo debet pelago se credere si qua Audet in exiguo ludere cymbalacu That Hercules doth enterprize the conquest of the Heavens and desire to do it by his strength never wonder Since he hath already tride them and knows their weight Et posse caelum viribus vinci suis Didicit ferendo Do ye likewise measure the strength of your shoulders by the weight of the burden and where you can say Par oner● cervix take up the same and go on Prudentia hominis est saith St. Jerome nosse mensuram suam nec imperitiae suae ●orbem testem facere Yee should unite Argus and Briareus so that ye should not have a hundred hands ready to write if ye have not also in the Intellect an hundred eyes open to understand Let not a spacious field of noble Argument so transport and hurry your Spirits that the desire of running through it make you forget that you have neither wings nor ability to doe it Vale your too venturous plumes that would sooner make you fall than flie and do Like to the un-slegg'd Stork that strives to fly And being untimely hasty fluttering leaves Its lothed Nest and so a fall receives But of this I am to speak upon another accasion by and by 3 The third cause why there is more abortives than births is from the impatient desire to bring them forth before they be perfectly formed They hear not the precept of Horace Nonnunque prematur in annum Membranus intus positis delere licebit Quod non edi deris Nescit vox missa reverti It is no wonder if Mushrums that grow up in one hour rot in the next and our works prove saith Plato like those famous Gardens of Adonis Qui subito die uno nati celerrimè pereunt Agatharchus was a Painter for whom all the Cloth of Greece all the Colours of the East sufficed not He compiled the draughts of his Tables with more expedition than the Sun draws the Rain-bow in the Clouds But what then They were pictures that hung in every sordid place and exposed without regard lived no longer than the men sown by Cadmus On the contrary Zeuxis who in bringing forth his works was more tedious than the Elephant and gave not a touch with his Pencil which he recall'd not to a critical examination merited that eternity of glory for which alone he painted The wisest men are ever the most severe with the works of their own Wits knowing that they ought to be not only read but examined by men of great judgment which made them say with young Plinius Nil est curae meae satis Cogito quam sit magnum dare aliquid in manus hominum nec persuadere mihi possum non cum multis saepè tractandum quod

loud and low the hair neither litherly dangling nor as dry curled and crisped the hands lean the legs small the corporature indifferent the colour amiable and I know not what These are for the most part dubious conjectures and fallacious prospectives yea they equally agree to contrary not to say different principles At least it is certain that either there must concurre to their establishment experience with the observation of Ingenious Men or Reason drawn from the temper and disposition of Organs that are of use to the Imaginative Faculty and the Mind and experience evinceth it to him that is inquisitive that of any three of them two proves false and that the temper of the Internal Instruments hath not such conexion with these external Signes that one may collect thence ordinary much lesse infallible arguments The Original cause of the excellency and Diversity of Wits and the various Inclinations of the Genius BY a clean contrary way to the former go they who placing all the energy of the Wit in the force of the Soul and supposing its use wholly independent from the instruments of the Body do deny that we may argue from any sensible appearance the quality or quantity of others Wit There is say they difference amongst Souls not only in their proper Essence but also in the degrees of accidental Excellence which makes them one more or lesse perfect than another This is no lesse an honour to the great Artist that made them and an ornament to the World than that variety of features which is in the face of Man though it be composed of few members wherein to find two a-like is wonderful two stamped with the same impression almost impossible The diversity of Wits arising in this manner from the diverse degrees of perfection of Souls to what end seek they Indices thereof from the Body as if according to the errour of that great Proto-Physician the Soul were no other than a Consonance of qualities and a Harmony of humours To argue from the voice from the Complexion from the features accutenesse of Wit is as from the pencils to divine the excellency of the Art of a great Apelles or from the Sword the valour of the arm of a magnanimous Scanderbeg An Oxe with one only claw divided in the midst and Alexander so painted that his arm advancing with a thunderbolt seemed to come out of the Tele These are true arguments of Art Ability The Ingenuity likewise is known by no other means than by the actions other tracks it leaves not by which to guesse of its form other shadow it hath not by which to collect its proportion And if that be not so Observe the diversity of Wits which as if they were Stars of different Genius and Nature variously incline and then if there be any you may find in the temper of the body the principle whence such difference is derived Some are so nimble witted that they seem to have fancies composed of light to whom the setting out the running and arriving are all but one moment Rapid Eagles to whom their Masters no sooner show a Lure then they reach unto it so that as Plato said of his Aristotle they have an Art to accellerate their wings that they may slye not by force but by choice Others on the contrary as Zenocrates a Mercury without wings both in head and feet are so slow and dull that they must have spurs to make them run nay go They are Stars but of that Constellation called the Beare to whom the vicinity of the Pole makes the motion very slow and the revolution tedious as if they also were subject to the Septentrion frosts Some have an Understanding like impressions made upon the water that soon receive the stamp and as soon also lose it That are as swift in forgetting as they were in getting Wits resembling either Doves Quarum omnis inclinatio in colores novos transit but colours of which as fast as they take one they lose another or Glasses in which Aequè citò omnis imago aboletur ac componitur Contrariwise in others the Understanding is a graving in Porphyre and Marble An image is not form'd in them without the force of Chizels with great patience but then it is of such duration that neither Oblivion nor Time can e-face it Cleanthes was one of these call'd in derision the Hercules of the Schools because his becomming a Phylosopher was as laborious to his mind as it was to the body of the other to make himself a Demi-god Oris angustissimi vas so saith Plutarch dissicilimè admittens sed semperretinens quod admisit There are them that when Children are all Spirit when Men all Dregs In their first years the Nightingales seem to sing on their mouth as on that of the Child Stesichorus grown bigger they roare like Oxen. Like to that Ancient Hermogenes that was Senex inter pueros inter senes puer In others on the contrary the Wit gradually meliorateth with years whereupon those that before appeared steril truncks their buds opening by little and little they send forth branches of large extent and unfold some leaves in the end are ladē with more fruit than others have leaves Observe Baldo a Jurist that stood to speak so as the Palm a hundred years before he bore any fruit whereupon arose the scoffe which he had so o●t laid in his dish being a Scholar Doctor eris Balde sed praeterito saeculo What shall we say of those that for every Science have a VVit equally perfect that as the light to all Colours so their mind are adapted to all matters servile or sublime of ample or profound dimension Few such there be yet some there are and on them we may bestow for a perfect Panegyrick that great applause Sparguntur in omnes In te mysta sluunt quae divisa beatos E●●iciunt collectatenes Blessed VVits in whom that which Pliny saw in a Tree that alone was an entire Orchard it having ingrafted upon it the fruits of all Trees that which Ausonius had in a Statue of Bacchus that had a kind of resemblance to every of the gods whereupon he calls it not a god alone but a Pantheon is much more happily and with greater admiration and envy expresly seen They are few but are worth many nor only many but many of excellency and merit so that it may be said of them as of the great Colossus of Rhodes Majores sunt digiti ejus quam pleraeque statuae They are few but transform themselves into as many as Learning hath Professions nor know you in which they most excel being that in all they are like unto themselves and not inferiour to any others and you may sooner find such as envy than such as equal them Finally in whatsoever kind of Learning you will they are able to say as Vertumnus amongst the Poets Opportuna mea est cuncta natura figuris