MUCH Men do is Folly merely;
And if asked the reason, why?
Seldom, truthfully and clearly,
To the question they reply.
If reply they make, 't is ever,
With them all, the same excuse;
And some think the answer clever:
"'Tis the Fashion"-"custom"-"use!"
Custom more than Reason should be law,
Fashion-Customs, slight as straw,
Stronger chains on them impose,
Bonds more binding far than those,
Tyrants since the fellow man.
Laid upon their fellow man.
He vainly boasts that he is free,
Who feas t'infringe on Fashion's rule;
For worse than slave, already, he
Is both at once- a slave, and fool.
Inter causas malorum nostrorum est, quòd vivimus ad exempla, nec ratione com-
ponimur, sed consuetudine abducimur. Quod pauci fuciunt, nolumus imitari: quùm
plures facere coeperunt, quasi honestius sit, quia frequentius, sequimur, et recti apud
nos locum tenet error; &c.- SEN. Epist.58.
Qui veut, il peut.
WHAT less, than Fool, and greater Fool, tan he,
Who knows no Heaven but his mistress' smiles,
And bows his reason to the tyranny
Of her caprice and ever changing wiles?
Than he, whose brain-sick fantasy can find
Subject for Love, in each insensate whim,
And in her very faults of her heart and mind,
A grace, to none apparent but to him!
Who sees not, when she most affects the Dove,
She but derides the passion he reveals;
And that most false when most she vows her love,
'Tis but to seem what least she is- and feels.
If true that, he who wills it may be free:
Who hath no Will, must have a lack of brains;
A straw-tied Fool! who for his stultity,
In Love, as in aught else, deserves his chains.
A WISE man't heart is at right hand, but a fool's heart is at his left._Ecclesiastes x. 2.
He that sendeth a message by the hand of a Fool,cutteth off the feet, and drinketh
damage. - Proverbs xxvi. 6.
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a Fool returneth to his folly.- Proverbs xxvi. II.
Non ex omni ligno fit Mercurius.
Magna Negotia viris magnis committenda.
By so much the more are we inwardly foolish, by how much we strive to seem
outwardly wise.- S.GREG.
Ex thymbrâ nemo lanceam conficiet;
Neque ex Socrate bonum militum. - ATHEN. lib. v.
TH'upward soaring spirit ever
Craves the joys of heaven to know,
But alas! the vain endeavour!
Bondslave of the flesh, below:
Though they be but frail as straw,
Wordly joys more strongly draw.
FOR, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion
to the flesh, but by love serve one another. - Galatians v.13.
THE weak may be laughed out of anything but their weakness. - M. DE GENLIS.
WE talk of acquiring a habit! we should rather say being acquired by it. Habit is
the janissary power in man; Passion and Principle the antagonist revolutionary
powers for evil and for good.
You may as well go stand upon the beach,
And bid the main flood 'bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why the hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops, and to make a noise
When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven,
As seek to soften that (than which what's harder?)
A foolish heart. - SHAKESPEARE.
A NATION deserves no better laws than those it will submit to. - GOETHE.
THE Nation, like the man who would be free,
Must merit first the rights of liberty.
WHOSE purchase was his pouch, his house a tun,
Criticke of actions whatsoever done,
That learned dogge, at noone-tyde tinn'd his light,
Searching for one, whose actions were upright.
The Eagles young ones by the Sunne are try'd,
Mens actions by the lamp are best espy'd;
For men in day time maskt with vizards goe,
Of truth and faith making an outwad show.
But when they can nights secret silence find,
Before the lamp they doe unmaske their mind.
Happy is he whom Sunne and Lamp sees one,
Who's honest still, though witnesse there be none.
FARLIE'S Emblems.
ACT WISELY AND THOU SHALLT BE FREE
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