Two Essays of LOVE AND MARRIAGE Being A LETTER Written by a Gentleman to his Friend to disswade him from Love And an ANSWER thereunto by another Gentleman Together with some Characters and other Passages of Wit Written by Private Gentlemen for recreation Si quando gravabere curis Haec lege pro moestae medicamine mentis Hebeto London Printed for Henry Brome at the Hand in Pauls Church-yard 1657. THE STATIONER To the READERS Gentl THese scattered Papers coming to my hands I thought fit upon good Reasons to communicate them to you I might tell you they are delightfull and ingenuous but you will not take me for a competent Judge being neither learned nor indifferent Laudat venales The truth is my aim is as the Scots was for all your geuds And to please you and profit my self is the ambition and design of Your Servant H. B. To his honoured Friend on his being in love I. True Friend BUt that I know heresie is fashionable and madnesse the time-Livery thou wouldst force me to no little wonder which way possible thou shouldst stumble into Love be sick and sottish in Love lost as well to reason as good company lockt up from all the World but thy own thoughts and onely conversant with thy self yet formerly pleasant and affable desirous and desired of Society and one that I know has lived no Anchorite upon Earth nor yet hast had thine eyes tied up to any one face but hast both viewd and discourst with variety of Beauties nay I dare say not guilty of the ignorance of more yet that after so many Antidotes thou shouldst be so far fallen from thy primitive goodness as to lose thy self in dotage and that dotage on one creature and that creature a woman and call it Love too really next to a miracle is my onely admiration Prethee do not miscall thy disease and be sick of lust and complain of Love I can never believe that that noble passion can be the ruine of its subject neither will I so much disparage it as to make a woman its object If there be love t is to Heaven Vertue thy Countrey Parents Kinred Friends or what is of worth but to the femall Sex and in thy sense where sensuality cannot but have an interest though licenc'd by an Ordinance 't is onely Love scandall'd it being to the pity of the poor passion I speak it but concupiscense handsomly burnisht or a carnall appetite speciously in titled And therefore could I never win my judgement to affirm that the most eager of sinners were in love with sin but onely temptingly seduced to a vicious doting they did rather erroneously affect then truly love But let me inquire into thy passion what is it from the paint of nature those beautifull flowers of red and white methinks thou shouldst as well be enamoured with thy Mistris's picture as her body for even that too is not excusable from art and may be the worst drawn Frank he that marries for a face marries for a year 't is not a Summer since thy desires wrought as strongly upon Mistris M. R. as now on this and may be on as good a cause yet how soon did a little disease wither both her beauty and thy love and I hope thou hast not indented either with sickness or time for this Canst thou be so prodigall of thy affection as to waste it on such incertainties binde up thy self to love for an age when the cause of that love may perish in a moneth But I tell thee Frank beauty is a Chimera and has no being in nature Every man makes his own Mistris and just so much lustre do's he finde in her as first his fancy gives her For I dare challenge thee to shew me but one face in the whole world that all opinions will give in for beautifull so that Lovers as thou call'st them are but in the number of Pagans they but worship that Idoll which themselvs have made May be thou wilt tell me of manners carriage and vertue I am very glad to hear of it but let not thy passion hang in thy eyes when thou lookst on them for many of them their gestures are but School-postures and seem rather like a motion then a carriage Consider that in the presence of their Servants they are on the Stage and 't is rather action then behaviour it may be wert thou a peeper on them in their withdrawing rooms thou wouldst as much wish thine eyes closed then as now open For their vertues as I will not disallow the judgement of that reverend Doctor That 't is possible to finde some vertue in some women so I cannot believe there is such a grand stock of it in any of them as to command any man out of his senses for the love of it but I suppose as we more wonder to finde a Diamond on the shore then on the rock so but a spark of vertue in a woman gets greater reverence then a bodied lustre in the nobler Sex for 't is our humour to admire the more where we expect the less The cause then of thy love is either from beauty or vertue if from beauty how wilt thou love her when she is old If from vertue why dost thou covet to lie with her there needs not that low act of generation to the high communion of vertues and I should scarce take thee for a platonick Lover to warm a bed with her But shall I tell thee the cause don 't be afraid of truth then thou first lovest her to satisfie thy lust and if thou after continue to lie with her 't is either for want of a better or ' cause thou canst not be rid of her For I look on all the perfections in females but as so many encouragements to desire and that the best of women like the best of sallads procure the strongest appetite and in truth 't is the woman is affected not this the Sex being the substance and the Mistris but the shadow or that the rule of thy affection and this the instance But then thou wilt be goring of me with that common goad of objection thy so much curiosity in choice and rather my Lady then Jone Prethee tell me be thy appetite never so good do's thy meat relish the worse for being the cleanlier drest I never knew that good cookery did turn the edge of a good stomack and especially if thou limitest thy fancy to one dish thou hadst need to be both long in choosing and neat in dressing as well to avoid nauseating as to continue provocation Remember that July holds not all the year nor youth all thy life there is a December and Winter of age that attends on both and that passion that in its Spring will take fire at any face will in its Autumn be frost at all a bed-ridden palate is scarce sensible of sauce much less meat not the best of weapons how brisk and keen soever at the first but after long
silence but the proverb excuses me He whom sorrow makes dumb deserves double pity For my part I must confess I love to sleep in a whole skin and not to engage in anothers quarrell unless he will lend me his skull to bear the blows but this being the common cause 't is pity truth should be out-worded and her innocence be suspected to want clearness meerly for want of clearing There is no man more unfit for this work then I having been ever as atheistical in love as thy self and so far from being an Opponent to thy Thesis that I have ever been a noted Assertor of thy Doctrine till experience reformed my judgment and makes me look on my former error with regret and disdain 'T is so far from being a wonder to me that one pleasant affable and sociable one that has view'd variety of beauties should fall in love with one woman that I wonder how it could be otherwise none being fitter for love then one so qualified nor can any finde a best that have not view'd all That Love per se is the ruine of its subject I deny yet I allow it may be accidentally true and be a passion not the less noble And as I would not have it onely restrained to woman for its object so I would not have them totally excluded And truly I am so far from believing that Sex not an object of love that I can hardly admit of any besides That Love has several objects as Heaven Vertue and the rest which you reckon up with many more I deny not But all they as oblique objects are so far from being adaequate that they draw love in severall denominations as piety duty friendship c. And but that seriousness would be thrown away on thee and any thing here but sophistry useless I could tell thee from the learned that Love is onely an expansion of the soul to its object which is whatever is attractive and that naturally man loves himself best and first and all other things in subordination to himself and that whatever is most like man in nature and habit is the properest object of his love Then 't will follow whether you will or no that no object is so proper as woman But thou'lt laugh at these old-fashion'd grounds and account them like Harry's codpieces To abstract Love from sensuality in a naturall sense is both impossible and needless it deriving a greater influence from the sensitive soul and being a passion from which bruits are not exempt Nay that very thing which you call sensuality and will allow it to derive its legitimation onely from an Ordinance may shew an ancienter coat then Ordinances it being the onely way chalked out by nature for propagation and preservation of every species So that your Epithites and Synonoma's of concupiscense and carnal appetite c. I attribute to the luxuriance of your fancy and must tell you we can easily give you and your ways the like tearms without the help of a Sylva 〈◊〉 your main besitancy is 〈…〉 are you causes of love 'T is not bare red and white that are either causes of or colours for it but the scituation and contexture of both I never loved my Mistris face because fair but because I liked it and thereby thought it so and I therefore thought it so because hers so that should time or accident from which no face has a protection alter the complexion in the eye I 'd retain the same Idea still in mine Next for the Gentlemans change with which you upbraid him much may be pleaded in excuse for besides the great delight in variety I know no reason why if a man finde himself in an errour he may not repent and take a new course Nor may you call it prodigality of affection he that grounds his love right is above uncertainties in regard the true cause of love which is sympathy cannot perish before its object And because you say Beauty is a Chymaera and every man a pigmation that carves to himself a Mistris will you from thence infer that because all men do not think one face beautifull no man should think any so And I appeal to the Synod of Divines whether for a Lover to choose his own Mistris and love her or court her be a piece of ignorance or paganism Nor can you deny that manners carriage and vertue are incentives to love and that these things are really visible in that Sex by any that look not through spectacles of prejudice But he that has an ill sight dislikes all objects Thou hast an humour in thine eyes whereby thou canst not discern action from behaviour I like it not the worse if acquired no more then I do a good Scholar that speaks Latine by the Grammar That there are arcana imperii among them as well as us is undeniable for if all were as they appear they would be rather Angels then women 'T is true much action and deceptio visus is in both Sexes in point of Courtship whereby they reciprocally draw their expectations to a height unobtainable and succeeding enjoyments convince both Sexes of a handsom but commonly an equall cheat I shall not onely allow of that Doctors charity that held That 't is possible some vertue may be found in some women but also shall experimentally adde That much vertue may be found in many 'T is not for nothing that all vertues are declined by Grammarians with haec and fancied by Painters in female shadows Vertues are like Diamonds rare and small nor should we esteem them were they to be bought by the pound I take vertue and beauty to be causes of affection but I mean not by beauty the meer superficies of a visage but the symmetry of parts and he that grounds his affection rightly on that findes a becoming beauty even in old age Vertue also I conceive a cause of love and love a motive of copulation Nor is generation for the communion of vertues but propagation of issue since 't is an undoubted law of nature that all creatures desire and endeavour perpetuation You call lust the cause of love 't is true if you take all altitudes by your own Jacobs staff 't is so to you so the Wolf conceives all creatures to eat raw flesh because he do's I cannot imagine such a stoical apathy in men unless in Eutopia but that we do and may make that which you call lust a part of love Nor is that passion it self blameable but circumstances may make it so for the Stoicks themselves got children and did not deny the being of desires in men but their domineering over Reason Nor is it the work of a wise man to be without passions but above them Consider man as with a soul compounded of Will and Reason the conquest of the will in this life can be but by synechdoche which being considered it will follow That men abstracted from desires of this nature are rather to be looked for then found And
body is built like Babel but never with an intent to reach Heaven the Workmen were confounded and put Morter where Gold should be His ordinary Discourse is only scurrility and profaness in a miscellany boyled together in huge quantities of Sack which he carves to his friends as prime Dainties Rather then his Jests shall want fire he will light them at Gods Altar and though a Conceit grow on the Banks of Hell he will adventure to fetch it not caring to gain his Conceit though he lose his soul In company he monopolizeth all the Discourse to himself not regarding if his tongue keep on a gallop before how far his understanding loyters behind Sometimes his Wit stumbles on a Jest as he that shoots thick sometimes may hit and then you will do him a great discourtesie if you do not laugh but the main body of his Discourse is a Wild-goose chase after some printed wit which he cannot catch When he speaks 't is not the motion of his tongue but the ratling of his brains and 't is worth our wonder that his belly should be so full and head so empty but the fulness of the one is the emptiness of the other His belly like the great Fish eats up all the rest of his limbs yet his wit is as fat as that He has spent much time in travell to learn to be an Ass all that he has seen is the Tun at Hadleburgh which he studies to imitate and all that he hath brought away is the exact managing of his Fork at Table He walks in the streets like a Rundlet of Sack on two posts and where'ere he goes he carries a fool with him His study is old Jests and Tales his recreation Drinking and his main occupation is Wenching But I fear I have been too long in his company by this time he is drunk 't is time to leave him lest he spue in our faces A Solicitor IS one of the blades of Corn that springs from the Ilian ruines whose ears grow up for the Harvest of a Pilory His Profession is originally like a Cuckow from the Nest of another Trade where he has learned wrangling and knavery enough in his own Causes to spoil another mans With the sweetned Ingredients of City fraud he compounds himself though simple enough for any villany He is truly said to follow a Cause but a small Bribe will lame him so that he will never come near it He is one of Sampson's Foxes that fires all about him but that his fire is generally in his nose as well as his tail His ambition is so low not to have his Chamber in an Innes of Court but in an Ale-house of the City a Tavern is his form and licking of Pots his Law Most of his Actions are Assaults or Slanders which are broach'd where his Ale is in a Cellar and after a long circumstance center themselves where they begun where his foolish Client being weary of his fruitless endless Suit and repenting the idle expence of his Money for an imaginary vaâ—num called getting the day like the Chymist that blows away his Silver and Lungs for that Fools rather then Philosophers Stone do's by his wholsom advice when his Money is spent refer his Suit to Arbitrators and Vmpires whose Verdict is after long debate A Supper for themselves at the equall charge of both Parties That both must be sony for what they have done as they have good cause and sit down by their losses He seldom gets any considerable preferment but among Fish-wives or Watermen or in a Countrey Village where all stand in awe of him and slander him with the Title of Master Lawyer Ignorance and beggary makes him resolute that he dares thrust his head into any employment At last having run through the Zodiack of all Courts if he scape the preferment of the Gallows he casts Anchor in a Goal or a Bridewell and there we leave him FINIS