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Maxims.

A RIGHT INDIFFERENCE.

Reason should have ability

To hold these worldly things in such proportion,
As let them come or go with even facility.

Sir Philip Sydney.

MAN'S PREROGATIVE.

Books are part of man's prerogative,

In formal ink they thought and voices hold,
That we to them our solitude may give,
And make time present travel that of old.
Our life, fame pieceth longer at the end,
And books it farther backward doth extend.
Sir Thomas Overbury.

THE ARMOUR WORN BY PATIENCE.

Patience doth bear a never pierced shield,

Whose brightness hath enforc'd more monsters yield, Than that of ugly Gorgon's head was made.

Sylvester.

OUR SUNSET.

No man before his end is truly blest.

Decker.

THE EFFECT OF CULTIVATION.

Use makes things nothing huge, and huge things nothing.

Chapman.

THE BALANCE OF DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.

God's mercy gently weighs his justice down.

Achelly.

BALM.

God hath made a salve for every sore,

If men would learn the same for to apply.

Sir John Harrington.

THE INALIENABLE KINGDOM.

No banishment can be to him assign'd,
Who doth retain a true resolved mind.

Drayton.

COURAGE LIGHTENS ILL.

Good heart in ill, doth th' evil much amend.

Spenser.

SOME FREEDOM TURNED TO BANISHMENT.

To roam

Giddily, and be everywhere but at home,
Such freedom doth a banishment become.

Donne.

THE UNSOUGHT REMEDY.

Ofttimes we see that sorrows of the mind
Find remedy unsought, which seeking cannot find.

Spenser.

FAITH.

Let soberness be still thy wisdom's end,
Admitting what thou canst not comprehend.

Sylvester.

THE FILM OF BEAUTY.

All men do err, because that men they be,
And men with beauty blinded, cannot see.

Peele.

HEAVEN.

Heaven is not given for our good works here;
Yet it is given to the labourer.

Herrick

GOOD INCLINATIONS.

God never accepts a good inclination instead of a good action, where that action may be done; nay, so much the contrary, that if a good inclination be not seconded by a good action, the want of that action is thereby made so much the more criminal and inexcusable. A good inclination is but the first rude draught of virtue; but the finishing strokes are from the will: which, if well disposed, will by degrees perfect; if ill disposed, will, by the superinduction of ill habits, quickly deface it.

South.

THE WILL THE CAUSE OF WO.

When man is punish'd, he is plagued still,
Not for the fault of nature, but of will.

A COMPARISON.

Our life is but a step in dusty way.

Herrick.

Sir Philip Sydney.

THE CAR OF FAITH.

Repentance, hope, and soft humility,
Do flank the wings of faith's triumphant car.

Sylvester.

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Is like a sacred book that's never read,

I' himself he lives, and to all else seems dead:
This age thinks better of a gilded fool,

Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.

Decker.

*

REVOLUTIONS.

* The ever-changing course of things

Run a perpetual circle, ever turning.

Change lives not long, time fainteth, and time mourns: Solace and sorrow have their certain turns.

A JACOB'S LADDER.

Humility, to heaven, the step, the stair
Is for devotion, sacrifice, and prayer.

MISCHIEVOUS IGNORANCE.

Daniel.

Drayton.

We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers

Deny us for our good; some find profit

By losing of our prayers.

Shakspere.

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