But, if I could question your willing protection of it, I might strengthen my petition for it, by an unquestionable commendation of the author's published Meditations, in most of which (even those of Poetry begun in his youth) there are such tinctures of piety, and pictures of devout passions, as gained him much love, and many noble friends.

One of that number (which is not to be numbered) was the religious, learned, peaceable, humble Bishop of Armagh; whom I beseech God to bless, and make your majesty and him, in these bad, sad times, instruments of good to this distracted, distempered, Church and State.

This is my unfeigned prayer: and I doubt not but all that wish well to Sion will seal it with their Amen.

Your majesty's poor

And most faithful subject,

RICHARD ROYSTON.

PREFACE

[OF RICHARD ROYSTON.]

READER,

IT is thought fit to say this little, and but this little, of the Author and his book. He was (for I speak to those that are strangers to his extraction and breeding) a branch of a deserving family, and the son of a worthy father: his education was in the Universities and Inns of Court, but his inclination was rather to divine studies than the law.

This appears in most of his published books (which are many) but I think in NONE more than THIS, which was finished with his life.

Wherein the reader may behold (according to the arguments undertaken by the author) what passions, and in what degrees those passions, have possessed his soul; and whether grace have

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yet allayed or expelled them (those that are inconsistible with virtue) from the strong hold of his affections.

Such this Treatise is, and being such, I commend it to the reader, and this wish with it, that those many (too many) writers who mistake maIce for zeal, and (being transported) speak evil of government, and meddle with things they understand not (Jude, viii. 10.); forgetting there are such sins as sedition and heresy (sins which Saint Paul, Gal. v. 20, 21. parallels with murder and witchcraft) would change their disputes into devout meditations, such as these be; in which the pious man shall see virtue adorned with beautiful language, and vice so presented, as it is not like to infect the mind, nor corrupt the conscience.

The method, the arguments, the style, all speak Mr. Quarles the author of the book; and the book speaks his commendations so much, that I need not commend it; but I do thee, to God.

Farewell.

JUDGMENT AND MERCY, &c.

PART THE FIRST.

THE SENSUAL MAN.

HIS SOLACE.

COME, let us be merry, and rejoice our souls, in frolic and in fresh delights: let us screw our pampered hearts a pitch beyond the reach of dull browed sorrow: let us pass the slow paced time in melancholy charming mirth, and take the advantage of our youthful days: let us banish care to the dead sea of phlegmatic old age: let a deep sigh be high treason, and let a solemn look be adjudged a crime too great for pardon. My serious studies shall be to draw mirth into a body, to analise laughter, and to paraphrase upon the various texts of all delights. My recreations shall be to still pleasure into a quintessence, to reduce beauty to her first principles, and to extract a perfect innocence from the milk white doves of Venus. Why should I spend my precious minutes in the sullen and dejected shades of sadness? or ravel out my short-lived days in solemn and heart-breaking care? Hours have eagles-wings, and when their hasty flight shall put a period to our numbered days, the world is gone with us, and all our forgotten joys are left

to be enjoyed by the succeeding generations, and we are snatched we know not how, we know not whither; and wrapt in the dark bosom of eternal night. Come then, my soul, be wise; make use of that which gone, is past recalling, and lost, is past redemption: eat thy bread with a merry heart, and gulp down care in frolic cups of liberal wine. Beguile the tedious nights with dalliance, and steep thy stupid senses in unctuous, in delightful sports. 'Tis all the portion that this transitory world can give thee. Let music, voices, masks, and midnight revels, and all that melancholy wisdom censures vain, be thy delights. And let thy care-abjuring soul cheer up, and sweeten the short days of thy consuming youth. Follow the ways of thy own heart, and take the freedom of thy sweet desires; leave not delight untried, and spare no cost to heighten up thy lusts. Take pleasure in the choice of pleasures, and please thy curious eyes with all varieties, to satisfy thy soul in all things which thy heart desires. Ay, but, my soul, when those evil days shall come wherein thy wasting pleasures shall present their items to thy bedrid view-when all diseases and the evils of age shall muster up their forces in thy crazy bones, where be thy comforts then?

CONSIDER, O my soul, and know that day will come, and after that, another, wherein, for all these things,

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God will bring thee to judgment. Eccles. xi.

Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness. Prov. xiv.

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