Let him go on, bleft ftars, 'tis meet he fall, "
Whose blindfold judgment hath no guide at all.
Are ftill more fubject to credulity.
Sir W. Davenant's Albovine.
CRUELTY
But cruelty can never 'fcape the fcourge
Of fhame, of horror, or of fudden death:
Repentance felf, that other fins may purge,
Doth fly from this; fo fore the foul it flay'th.
Defpair diffolves the Tyrants bitter breath:
For fudden vengeance fuddenly alights
On cruel deeds, to quit their cruel spights.
Mirror for Magiftrates.
The wrath of kings doth feldom measure keep,
Seeking to cure bad parts, they lance too deep;
When punishments, like light'ning fhould appear
To few mens hurt, but unto all mens fear:
Great elephants, and lions, murder least ;
Th' ignoble beaft, is the moft cruel beaft.
And though fome make us to be loath'd of one,
We by their means anothers love obtain;
But cruelty, with which none can comport,
Makes th' authors hated when the deed is done;
Oft ev'n by those whom it did most support;
As that which alienates men from their kind :
And as humanity the mind enchants,
So barb'rous fouls which from the fame refrain,
More fierce than favage beafts, are lov'd of none:
Since with fuch beafts one with lefs danger haunts,
Than with the Man whofe mind all mercy wants.
E. of Sterline's Alexandrean Tragedy.
Oft those whose cruelty makes many mourn,
Do by the fires which they first kindled burn.
E. of Sterline's Alexandrean Tragedy.
No council from our cruel wills can win us,
But ills once done, we bear our guilt within us.
John Ford's Love's Sacrifice
Strange cruelty! So tyrants us'd to grant offenders life,
After their condemnation, to referve them
To combat wild beasts in the spacious cirque,
Or bloody amphitheatre.
Glapthorne's Albertus Wallenftein.
Saw the returning fteps of th' credulous beafts,
That vifited the counterfeit fick lion?
2. And yet, O Abbas, what fierce rav'nous lion
Did ever Lybia's fiery womb produce,
Or what fell tyger, thy Hyrcania,
Of fo prodigious cruelty, as thou art ?
I. Lions are tame as lambs, and tygers mild
As frisking kids, to that outrageous monster.
2. There is no perilous defart but his breaft,
Where teeth and armed fangs do tear the ftrong,
And treach'rous toils t' infnare th' innocent,
Are ever ready fet.
CUCKOLD.
As horns are odious, they are neceffary.
It is faid, many a man knows no end
Of his goods, right: Many a man has good
Horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is
The dowry of his wife, 'tis none of his
Own getting; horns! Even fo-poor men alone.
No, no, the noblest deer hath them as huge
As the rafcal: Is the fingle man therefore
Blefs'd? No. As a wall'd town is more worthier
Than a village, fo is the forehead of
A marry'd man more honourable than
The bare brow of a batchelor; and by
How much defence is better than no skill,
So much is a horn more precious than to want.
Shakespear's As you like it.
If marriage be honourable, then
Cuckolds are honourable; for they cannot
Be made without marriage.
Shakespear's Yorkshire Tragedy.
For if he can prove his father was free
Of the order, and that he was his father's
Son; then by the laudable custom of
The city, he may be a cuckold by
His father's copy,
and never ferve for't.
Chapman's Monfieur D'Olive.
They fay, for one cuckold to know that his
Friend is in the like head-ach, and to give
Him counfel; is as if there were two part❜ners,
The one to be arrested, th'other to bail him.
Dekker and Webster's Weftward Hors
What is a cuckold? learn of me,
Few can tell his pedigree,
Nor his fubtil nature conftrue,
Born a man, but dies a monster:
Yet great antiquaries fay,
They fpring from our Methusela,
Who, after Noah's flood, was found
To have his creft with branches crown'd
God in Eden's happy shade
This fame creature never made;
Then to cut off all mistaking,
Cuckolds are of women's making.
Marfton's Infatiate Countefs.
Cuckolds, make cuckolds, 'tis a pretty trade In a peaceful city; 'tis women's work, man,
And they are good pay-mafters.
Tis a work of fuper-errogation, and the church for
1. Prythee, what's latin for a cuckold, scholar è
I could never learnt yet.
2. Faith, the Latins have no proper word for it,
That ever I read; homo, I take it, is the best,
Because it is a common name to all men.
Middleton and Rowley's World toft at Tennis.
What should you do with a wife?
Would you be crefted? Will you needs thruft your
In one of Vulcan's helmet's? Will you perforce
Wear a city-cap and a court feather?
An alderman leave to cuckold him, fo he might
Take his example from a city kind one,
Whofe wife long'd to kifs a lord; upon which
He grew fo proud, for being exalted above
The rest of his neighbours, that he'd fuffer none
To cuckold him but lords ever after.
To be a cuckold is as natural
To a married man, as to eat, fleep,
Or wear a night-cap. Friends! I will rather
Truft mine arm in the throat of a lion,
My purfe with a courtezan, my neck with
The chance on a dye, or my religion
In a fynagogue of Jews, than my wife
With a friend. Wherein do princes exceed
The pooreft peafant that ever was yoak'd
To a fix-penny ftrumpet, but that the
Horns of the one are mounted fome two Inches
Higher by a chopin than the other?
Oh Alton! The goodlieft-headed beaft
Of the foreft, amongit wild cattle, is a ftag;
And the good lieft beaft, amongst tame fools
In a corporation, is a cuckold.
John Ford's Love's Sacrifice.
A merchant newly marry'd went to fea;
Returning after three years voyage, he
Found his wife bufy'd 'midft her children two,
And with a third as big as the could go :
She, to prevent a storm, faid, Husband, you
By fea, and I by land have travail'd too.
It is the common condition
Of cuckolds to mistrust so much aforehand,
That when they are dubb'd indeed,
They have not a glimpse of suspicion left.
Richard Brome's Sparagus Garden.
CURSE
Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall,
That girdleft in those wolves! dive in the earth,
And fence not Athens! Matrons turn incontinent;
Obedience fail in children; flaves and foo's
Pluck the grave-wrinkled fenate from the bench,
And minister in their fteads: To general filths
Convert o'th' instant, green virginity!
Do't in your parents eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast;
Rather than render back, out with your knives,
And cut your trufters throats. Bound fervants, fteal;
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed;
Son of fixteen,
Thy miftrefs is o'th' brothel.
Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping fire,
And with it beat his brains out! Fear and piety,
Religion to the gods, peace, juftice, truth,
Domeftick-awe, night-reft, and neighbourhood,
Instruction, manners, mysteries and trades,
Degrees, obfervances, customs and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries!
And yet confufion live! -Plagues incident to men,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap
On Athens, ripe for ftroke! Thou cold fciatica,
Cripple our fenators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners. Luft and liberty`
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may ftrive,
And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,
Sow all the Athenian bofoms, and their crop
|