Hath made the court a kind of academy (query academe ?) MASSINGER (Emperor of the East 1. 1.) 1630-1632. Men came to his court as to bright academies. WEBSTER (A Monumental Column) 1613. Your own court.... as you call it, your academy. FORD (The Fancies III. 1.) 1638. The good old queen whose house.... was an academe. .... BEAUMONT & FLETCHER (Thierry 1. 2.) 1621. The academy from whence I sent him to the Emperors court. BEAUMONT & FLETCHER (Custom of the Country The court.... the abstract of all academies. IBID (Elder Brother v. 1.) 1637. The dramatic conception of a Prince is that embodied in Hamlet, sad, serious, and full of thought. He was a prince, sad, serious, and full of thoughts. BACON (Henry VII.) 1621. How is the king employed? I left him private, full of sad thoughts. SHAKESPEARE (Henry VIII. 11. 2.) 1623. Yonder he walks full of sad thoughts. MASSINGER (Duke of Milan 1. 3.) 1623. Alas good prince .... so full of serious thoughts and counsels?.... A sad and serious truth. CHAPMAN (Revenge for Honour v. 2. and II. 1.) 1654. You could not seem thus serious if you were married, thus sad and full of thoughts. BEAUMONT & FLETCHER (The Pilgrim 1. 1.) 1621-1647. The real king is he whose brow is crowned with a contented mind. My crown is in my heart, not on my head Nor to be seen. My crown is called content. SHAKESPEARE (I11. Henry VI.) 1623. Content's a kingdom, and I wear that crown. HEYWOOD (Woman Killed with Kindness) 1602-1107. A mind content both crown and kingdom is. GREENE (Farewell to Folly) 1617. Whose brow is wreathed with the silver crown Of clear content, this, Lucio, is a king. MARSTON (Antonio and Mellida IV. 4.) 1602. I had a kingdom once but am deposed From all that royalty of blest content. FORD (Lady's Trial 11. 3.) 1639. Is this your palace? Yes, and our kingdom, for 'tis our content. DEKKER (Honest Whore Iv. 1.) 1604. He only lives most happy That free and far from majesty Can live content. KYD (Cornelia Iv. 2.) 1594. The sweet content that country life affords Passeth the royal pleasures of a king. ANON (Selimus) 1594. Crown your beauty with content. Crown you with full content. FIELD (Amends for Ladies 1. 1.) 1618. FORD (The Fancies v. 3.) 1638. The best life is to be contented. BACON (Promus MS.) 1594 published 1883. Our content is our best having. SHAKESPEARE (Henry VIII. 11. 3.) 1623. It is noteworthy that however low may have been the players' careers their tastes were never otherwise than courtly. Their works contain few if any allusions to rough popular sports-cockfighting, bear baiting, football, keelpins, trunks, quoits, pitchingbars, hurling, leaping, running, mustering, wasters, quintain, boxing or wrestling- but are crowded with technicalities proving a close familiarity with Venerie, Falconry, Chess, Bowls and Primero. The metaphors drawn from these subjects are numerous. "Fly it a pitch above the soar of praise, says the anonymous author of Edward III. 1 "How high a pitch his resolution soars, says Shakespeare and the same Hawking metaphor is frequent elsewhere. " 1 2 In The False one 3 Beaumont and Fletcher observe, The greatness of thy mind does soar a pitch Their dim eyes, darkened by their narrow souls, Cannot arrive at. Yet, notwithstanding the majesty of intellect everywhere apparent, the dramatists unanimously denounce Ambition. By so doing they were espousing an unpopular idea, for Stubbes in his Anatomy observes that, "from the highest to the lowest, from the priest to the popular sort, even all in general (are) wonderfully inclined to covetousness and ambition. " It will be observed that the dramatists and 1 (II. 1.) 1596. 2 (Richard 11. 1. 1) 1597 3 (V. 4. 1620-47). Bacon are alike in refusing to perceive any virtue whatever in ambition. Ambition is like choler which is an humour. ... ... If it be stopped it becometh malign and venomous No man will take that part except he be like a seelèd1 dove, which mounts and mounts because he cannot see about him. BACON (Essay: Ambition) 1607-1625. Ambition, 'tis of vipers breed, it gnaws a passage through the womb that gave it motion. Ambition like a seelèd dove mounts upward higher and higher still to perch on clouds, but tumbles headlong down with heavier ruin. FORD (Broken Heart 11. 2.) 1633. This insatiate spirit of aspiring being so dangerous and fatal, desire mounted on the wings of it, descends not but headlong. ... CHAPMAN (Widow's Tears III. 1.) 1612. He should make it the height of his ambition to add strength to her wings and mount her higher though he fall himself into the bottomless abyss. MASSINGER (Bashful Lover v. III.) 1636-1655. For greater vipers never may be found Within a state than such aspiring heads. GREENE (James IV.) 1598. Take heed! Ambition is a sugared ill. IBID (Penelope's Web) 1601. Fell ambition. ANON. (Locrine IV. 3.) 1595. Foul ambition. SHAKESPEARE (2 Henry VI. III. 1.) 1623. I Seeled hooded and blindfolded -- an expression of Falconry. Fell ambition, founded first in blood. Fell ambition. KYD (Cornelia III.) 1594. ANON (Selimus) 1594. O hateful, hellish snake of Tartary, Why dost thou creep from forth thy loathsome [fen. IBID (Ibid) She held a great gold chain linked well SPENSER (Fairy Queen 11. 7) 1590-1609 The grandam of all sin, that strikes at stars FALKLAND (Marriage Night v. 1.) 1664. Ambition hath one heel nailed in Hell, though she stretch her fingers to touch the Heavens. LYLY (Midas II. 1.) 1592. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall. BACON (Essay: Goodness). 1625. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away Ambition. By that sin fell the angels. SHAKESPEARE (Henry VIII) 1623. Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts. IBID (Henry VI. 1. 2.) 1 1623. Ambition, Madam, is a great man's madness.... lunatic beyond all cure. WEBSTER (Malfi 1. 1) 1616-1623. |