Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/171

150 secrate to modest pleasure, not to Vanity, to ease, but not at all to Sloth. Should I be of so feeble a temper, that the gain or loss of a poor Flower, should either exalt or depress me? No, I esteem things at their just rates, and setting aside the meretricious advantage of Novelty: I know they are but Plants; I know they are but Flowers: that is, short-liv'd and transitory things; of which the Prince of Poets hath pertinently spoken,

I do not then despise these elegancies and delights (as you see) but herein I differ from these delicate Hortensii; that as I get such things as these without anxiety, so I keep, and so I lose them. Nor am I so Rh