Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A29786
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The reasons of Mr. Bays changing his religion considered in a dialogue between Crites, Eugenius, and Mr. Bays.
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Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing B5069; ESTC R13524
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41,504
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46
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for any concern of mine But Mr. Crites you shall hear now with what freedom I have censur'd this fickle multitude this Neutrum modo mas modo vulgus Not Truth nor Reason make thee at a stay Thou leap'st o're all I find I must take breath again before I can compass it 't is so very long Thou leap'st o're all eternal Truths in thy Pindaric way Crites This is a cutter by my faith Mr. Bays it lashes somewhere with a vengeance and I am now perswaded if the Rabble did but understand how severely you have affronted 'em that you 'd have a greater Mutiny about your ears than the late Cow-keeper or Sir Nicholas Gimcrack in the Virtuoso Bays I am much of your opinion Mr. Crites but prithee is it not a noble Majestic Verse that last Thou leap'st o're all eternal To tell you the truth I measur'd it not by my Fingers but a pair of Compasses and I dare safely say 't is the longest line except one in Christendom Now because you are my extraordinary good friends I will tell you whence I borrow'd the hint It was my fortune once in my Travels to drop into a Country Ale-house where some few stories of the Old Testament were represented in very ancient Hangings Amongst the rest that famous passage between Pharaoh and Moses was touch'd upon with some old-fashioned Poetry beneath it to explain the Figure and these individual lines that follow as I very well remember walked clearly round the room Why was not be a Rascal Who refused to suffer the Children of Israel to go into tho Wilderness Crites What have you not done with it Mr. Bays Bays No no with their Wives and Families to eat the Paschal There 's a line for you Mr. Crites if all the Pindariâ— in the World were lost this wou'd certainly retrieve it from oblivion I had the curiosity to measure it and 't is just forty six foot of Metre no more nor no less I warrant you any other man might have seen it twenty and twenty times and never edify'd the value of a brass farthing at the sight but I am an inquisitive person you know and like a good Chymist can extract rich Spirits of Poetry out of the most insipid matter So much at present for the several orders and degrees of mankind But I wish with all my heart my quarrels had stopt here or been only confin'd to my fellow creatures but I faith I have been so unfortunate in my time as to make a step higher so that if it is with Angels as with any particular society of men here upon earth where if you disoblige one you disoblige all the rest I must confess to my shame and sorrow that I have affronted the whole Celestial Hierarchy For Mr. Crites I have put the grossest abuse imaginable upon one of their Tribe who as I am informed makes no inconsiderable figure amongst em even the Archangel Gabriel Crites How Mr. Bays the Archangel Gabriel what occasion had you to quarrel with him Bays Troth Mr. Crites none at all How should I I never saw him or spoke with him to the best of my knowledge in all my life But now and then 't is my misfortune to be possest with the Spirit of Contradiction and at that time should you attempt me with all the kind language and the most convincing arguments in the world I am not to be perswaded Thus in my Life of Plutarch when it lay in my power either to have wav'd the business or at one words speaking to have made as good a Christian of that Reverend Philosopher as ever lived and I might easily have prevailed with good St. Ierome to set his hand to the Affidavit for you must know that honest Father inserted a worse man the Cuckold-maker Seneca by name into his Catalogue yet I'gad I make him in spight of his Teeth to continue in his old Pagan perswasion and present him with half a dozen objections against the Christian Religion which I 'm sure will never relish as long as the World stands with a Philosophers critical palate Thus also in the Conquest of Mexico a foolish freak took me in the head and I must make not only the Indian Priest and Montezuma himself who was in truth a very illiterate Prince but even some of his Courtiers who are a sort of men you know that seldom trouble themselves either with the Speculative or Practick part of Religion so confound the Spanish Chaplain and the rest of his Countrymen that they were forced in the Fifth Act when other methods fail'd to betake themselves to the Infallible Arguments of the Rack in order to make the Emperour and his Priest set their hands to the Apostles Creed and the Popes Supremacy Eugen. That was very unkindly done indeed Mr. Bays Bays So it was Sir and I have reckon'd it ever since among one of my crying Sins and design to do hearty Pennance for it as long as I live But to pursue the business in hand the very same Spirit of Contradiction I was mentioning before seiz'd me when I undertook to clear Miltons Paradice of Weeds and garnish that noble Poem with the additional beauty and softness of Rhyme He like a blind buzzard as he was makes Adam perform his addresses so ungracefully introduces him discoursing so unlike a Gentleman with that negligence of Language and stupidity of Spirit that I'gad you 'd pitty his condition And then for Eve as he has drawn her Character she talks so like an insipid Country House-keeper whose knowledge goes no farther than the Still or the Dairy who is as little acquainted with the tenderness of passion as the management of an Intreague that one cannot choose but wonder at it Now when I came to fall upon this work I was resolved to bestow a little good breeding upon our first Parents to shew them the Gallantry of a Court and the Discipline of an Academy to give them a turn or two in the Mall and the Galleries at Whitehall to entertain 'em with a Play in the Kings Box at the Theatre and afterwards with a fashionable Oglio at Lockets or the Blue-Posts that so they might be prevail'd with to leave the contemptible frugality of feeding upon Sallads and shake off all that Clownish rust which they had contracted in a former Education For this reason Mr. Crites I have made that great Grand-mother of ours discourse after another rate then she did before she talks of love as feelingly as a Thrice-married Widdow yet rails at marriage with the same concern as if she had seen the misfortunes of half her Daughters tells her Gallant that it was the Practice of all his Sex to decoy poor Innocent Maids with sham stories of their Passion and that he 'd be as apt to forget her after the enjoyment was over as a Sharper of the Town forgets the last friend he borrowed money of In fine she discourses of Flames Darts and Transports of the