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1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: [Comus], London: [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson,, published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:
Bring me berries, or such cooling fruit / As the kind, hospitable woods provide.
We have not been covetous, honourable fathers, to change, neither is it now any new lust that alters our affection, or old lothing, but those needful jealousies of state, that warn wiser princes hourly to provide their safety, and do teach them how learned a thing it is to beware of the humblest enemy; much more of those great ones, whom their own employed favours have made fit for their fears.
1606, Ben Jonson, Volpone, Dedication, in Gifford’s 1816 edition volume III page 164:
As for those that will (by faults which charity hath raked up, or common honesty concealed) make themselves a name with the multitude, or, to draw their rude and beastly claps, care not whose living faces they intrench with their petulant styles, may they do it without a rival, for me! I choose rather to live graved in obscurity, than share with them in so preposterous a fame. Nor can I blame the wishes of those severe and wise patriots, who providing the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a state, desire rather to see fools and devils, and those antique relics of barbarism retrieved, with all other ridiculous and exploded follies, than behold the wounds of private men, of princes and nations
1838, William H Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic., volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: American Stationers’ Company; John B. Russell, →OCLC:
provide such natives to the higher dignities of the church
Usage notes
As seen in the examples, when not used with that for previous conditions, provide is used with the prepositions for (beneficiary; also without preposition, usual for pronouns) and with (object).