The academie of eloquence containing a compleat English rhetorique, exemplified with common-places and formes digested into an easie and methodical way to speak and write fluently according to the mode of the present times : together with letters both amorous and moral upon emergent occasions / by Tho. Blount, Gent.

Hope.

HOpe is the gate of a great Palace replenished with riches. It is in my opinion the place which Tertullian termes, The Porteress of Nature. It hath two arms, with which it endeavours to pur∣sue and embrac•• objects, whereof the one is called Desire, and ••he the other Belief to be able to obtain what one desireth, &c. H. Court.

The Babylon of worldly hopes shews it self in the beginning, as a miracle; but if we proceed further, we find those desires, that were as pleasing as the dawning of the day (which at its first spring∣ing ••appeares all over studded with Emeralds and Rubies) turn at last, and are changed into the hor¦rors of a sad tempest.

Humane life hath not a surer friend, nor many times a greater enemy, then Hope. 'Tis the mise¦rable mans God, which in the had••st gripe of ca¦lamity, never fails to yeeld him beams of c••mf••••t. It is the presumpt••••us mans Divell, which leads him a while in a smo••th way, & then makes him break his neck o•• the sudden. Hope is to man as a bladder to a learning swimmer, &c. Feltham

—The sight wherof made Hope (the Harbinger of happiness) to breath in her this pleasing c••mfort.

Sweet, I see is the hope that springs in the bud, but most s••rrowfull I find is the hap that decays in the blossome.

Our teeming hopes will ever be delivered of a gracious birth.

—She whose weaker Bow••ls were streight full with the least liquor of hope.

Hope is but the dream of a man awake. You have blasted the harvest of my hopes.