into the same dust with that of her former Lover of whose singular Worth Fame hath diffused so honourable a report And having thus hastily delivered to her the Cause of his desperate Resolution he begins again to free his hands of the encumbrance of hers that he may speedily effect it But good and tender hearted Creature her Affection was too great to suffer her to yield to any thing conducing to his death and the more he strives to disingage her breast from his the closer she clings to him vowing withal That if he wounded himself it should be by forcing the sword first through her body â—o which she added that she would not live to be so miserable as to lose so dear a person so soon and in the same plâ—ce where she had been so happy to find him unexpectedly that very Gratitude forbad her to consent to the taking away his life who had lately and miraculously preseâ—ved hers and as she had some reason to believe infused a new life into her that it would be less affliction to her to die before him than to survive and behold at once the dead bodies of Two persons each of which she had loved infinitely above her own life and that the death he so much dreaded from from the Hangman was not so unavoidable as his Fears had made him imagine but there were other ways of evasion besides self-murder and would he but follow her advice she doubted not to put him upon such a course as should procure both his own security and her content The Soldier more effectually wrought upon by this last clause than by all else she had said and remembring the old saying that Womâ—n are always more subtle and ingenious at Evasions in sâ—ddain Exigences than men he easily promiseth as who would not in his case to listen to her Counsel and pursue it also if it appeared reasonable Well then saith this Good-Woman since the body of the best and greatest of mortals is but a lump of Clay after the departure of the soul which gave it life sense and motion that all Relations are extinguished in Death all Piety is determined in the Grave and that it is but Charity to use the reliques of the Dead in case of necessity to preserve the Living why should not I dispense with the Formality of posthume Respects to the putrifying Corps of my deceased Husband and make use of it for the preservation of my living Friend with whose life my own is inseparably bound up and whose danger therefore is equally mine Come therefore my Dear and let us take my Husbands body out of his Coffin and place it upon the Gibbet in the room of the Malefactor which you say hath been stoln away Death you know doth so change disfigure the Countenance as to disguise it from the knowledge of even the most famâ—liar Acquaintance Who then can distinguish this his naked body fâ—om the other Besides we will besmear his face with blood and dirt and rather than fail in any part of resemblance break his Arms and Lâ—gs and make the same wounds in him the Executioner did in the Rogue 's so that his neerest Relations shâ—ll not be able to find a difference much less shall strangers who come to gaze upon such horrid spectacles out of a savage Curiosity and commonly stand aloof off Here I cannot but cry out with Father Chaucer in his Bâ—llad of the praise of Women Lo what gentillesse these women have If we could knowe it for our rudeness How busie thei be us to keepe and save Both in heale and also in sickness And alwaie right sorie for our distress In every maner thus she we thei routh Tthat in hem is all goodness and trouth For of all creatures that ever were get and born This wote ye well a woman was the best By her was recovered the bliss that we had lorne And through the woman we shall come to rest And been â—saved if that our self lest Wherefore me thinketh if that we had grace We oughten honour women in every place The Souldier quickly approves the Woman's project how to excuse him and having no time for now day was approaching to insist upon acknowledgement either of her great Love or of the felicity of her Wit he joyns his strength with hers and removes the Husband's Corps out of the Vault to the Gibbet whereon he placeth it in the same posture he had left the villains omitting no part of those resemblances she had suggested as requisite to delude the spectators Which done He and his incomparable Mistress secretly retire to his obscure lodging there to consult further not only of their present safety but also how they might continue that mutual happiness which Fortune had so unexpectedly begun betwixt them And while they are there deliberating give me leave to deliver my self of a certain Conceipt I have in my head which is that the witty invention this Matron lighted upon on the suddain and in desperate extremity was that which gave the first occasion to this Proverb A Womans wit is always best at a dead lift FINIS THE Cimmerian MATRON To which is added THE MYSTERIES And MIRACLES OF LOVE By P. M. Gent. Qui cavet ne decipiatur vix cavet etiam cum cavet Etiam cum cavisse ratus est is cautor captus est Plautus In the SAVOY Printed for Henry Herringman at the Sign of the Anchor in the Lower-walk of the New-Exchange 1668. TO THE AUTHOR OF THE Ephesian Matron My dearest Friend YOu can be I perceive both highly obliging and no less severe to one and the same Person in one and the same act When you were pleas'd last Summer to send me your EPHESIAN MATRON with strict Command that I should entertain her as jealous Italians do their Mistresses mew her up in my Cabinet from sight of the whole world You sent a Present I acknowledge than which nothing could have been more gratefull but you conjoyn'd therewith a Râ—striction than which none could have been more rigorous You gave me good Wine and then gelt it with Water as the Spanish saying is of such who destroy their own benefits Like an imperious Lord you would have had the Lady my Tenent at your will and after you had made me a free Grant you inserted a Proviso to render it void In a word your Injunction to me to restrain her from the conversation of all others was not only tyrannical and inhumane in it self for as our great Moralist and beloved Author Chaucer in the Wise of Bath's Prologue He is to great a Diggarde that will werne A man to light a candle at his Lanterne but also inconsistent with both the goodness of her nature and the freedome of my enjoying the pleasures thereof For First the love of Liberty is no less natural to the soft and delicate Sex than to our harder and martial one nor doth our Magna Charta contain more Priviledges and Franchises than theirs
and in a trance of wonder and amazement Upon which Love immediately succeeding and in a moment with its celestial raies dispelling all the foggs of his cold and phlegmatick brain yea inspiring him as it were with a new and ingenious soul he rowzd up himself reflected upon the misery and dishonour of his late condition and put on a sprightly resolution to pursue his Nymph with Courtship and Gallantry worthy her admirable Form and his own noble extraction To this purpose he the next day followed his retreating Fairy to the City put on a becoming habit and with it a graceful and obliging Mine and animated with hope industriously imploy'd himself in learning Musick dancing fencing and acquiring all other good qualities requisite in a Gentleman So that in a very short time he was transformed from an Ideot a BartholmewCokes a Clown to a Bon Esprit a Virtuoso a Truwitt in a word to the most accomplish'd Gallant of the times nor was Iphigenia so invincible to such assaulting perfections as not by marriage of him to appropriate to her self the fruits of the Miraculous Metamorphosis the vision of her Beauties had wrought in him Such power hath the sight of a fair Lady naked to cause Love such power hath Love to cure the Lethargy of the Soul and awaken it into Wit and Galantry making a Heros of a Sott in fewer minutes than the Writers of Romances can in years I say a Heros because the same Cymon proved also famous at Arms fought sundry combats performed many heroical exploits and alwaies had Fortune for his Second the same flame that enlightned his understanding having heated his blood also and kindled Courage and Magnanimity in his heart At this you will the less wonder if you remember what you have read in Cardan lib. 2. de Sap. who there occasionally recounting many of the admirable effects of Love says thus Ex vilibus generosos efficere solet ex timidis andaces ex avariâ— splendidos ex agrestibus civiles ex crudelibus mansuctos ex impiis religiosos ex sordidis nitidos cultos ex duris misericordes ex mutis eloquentes c. If you contemn this authority I hope you will not dispute the Example of Sir Walter Manny in Edward the thirds time who being stuck full of Ladies favours fought like a Dragon nor that of Ferdinand King of Spain who as Castilio thinks had never conquer'd Granado had not Queen Isabella and her Ladies been present at the Siege it cannot be expressed sayes our Author what courage the Spanish knights derived from the raâ—es of the Ladies eyes a handful of amorouâ— Spaniards overcoming a multude of Moors Every true Lover is wise just temperate and valiant saith Agatho lib. 3. de Aulico who doubts not therefore but if a Prince had an Army of such Lovers he might soon conquer the whole world except he met with the like Army of Inamorato's to oppose it Plato then had reason when 5. de Legibus he would have women follow the Camp to be both Spectators and Encouragers of noble Actions it being his opinion in convivio that Mars himself borrowed most of his valour from his love of Venus SECT V. HAving beheld this Proteus Love in some of those various shapes wherein it usually appears you are I presume thereupon inclined to think it may be no less unconstant to its Object than it seems to be to it self To obviate this scandalous mistake therefore I find my self obliged in the next place to evince that the Judgments of Love are like those of Fate unalterable and perpetual that it is constant and immutable He who can cease to love whom he hath once loved doe's but dream he loved For the conjunction of true Lovers hearts like solemn Matrimony admits of no divorce When the Virgin Zone is untied a knot is in the same instant knit that can never be dissolved sometimes indeed as the Gordian it may be cut asunder Death may be the Alexander to discind but cannot untie it Love ceases not though what is loved hath ceas'd to be When your Turtle hath molted all her beautiful feathers and is grown old you shall not cease to think her still the same still amiable and youthful and what of her charming featureâ— time hath impaired your affection will continually renew the pleasing Form now lost to your eye shall be perpetually found fresh and lively in your mind The fidelity of Remembrance shall countervail the cruelty of Age which may by a natural Metamorphosis render your Wife a stranger to her former self but hath not the more tyrannical power to alienate her from you Nay when Fate shall have torn her from your armes even then shall you still retain and enjoy her in your imagination you shall think her not dead but only absent and as often as you mix embraces wâ—tâ— her kind Ghost you shall deny her to have perish'd Love shall make you triumph over Mortality and in the ardor of your spiritual â—ruition you shall bid defiance to Destiny crying out Though you have seperated us O Fatal Sisters you have not divided us yet we converse together yet we are a pair from others you have taken away the Woman from me not so much as her shadow While she lived we used but one Soul now but one Body Her Spirit is received into my breast and there remains fixt as in its proper Asterism and Heaven Thus Love seems to perform iâ—s course as the Sun in a Circle alwaies returning to the point whence it set forth so ending in it self as alwayes to begin For no man loves who can ever be able to love either less or not at all Of love there can be no end because no satiety Like Heaven and a contemplative Mind it is perpetually in motion never at rest yet that labour doth not weary but refresh Thus the end of one benefit is a degree toward another and the Soul provoked by a double ardor cherishes first the person and then its own obligations ad amor is perennitatem sufficit amasse Notwithstanding Love be thus immortal as being the proper affection of an immortal Soul and devoted to an eternal Object Good yet can I not deny but it is a kind of Death For who is ignorant that Lovers die as often as they kiss or bid adieu exhaling their Souls upon each otheâ—s lips Like Apollo's Priests possessed with the spirit of Divination they are transported out of themselves their life is a perpetual Extasie they devest themselves of their own Souls that they may be more happily fill'd with others I believe Pythagoras his Metempsychosis or Transmigration of his Soul when he loved not when he philosophiz'd At sight of a fair and well built house our souls like delicate and proud Ladies grow weary of ther own homely dwellings and are unquiet until removed thither because they were not born they affect to live yea to be born again therein Longing for the Elyzium of
no flames but such as arise from the difference of Sex and are kindled in the blood and other luxuriant humours of the body and that her Amours always â—end to the propagation of somewhat more Material than the simple Ideas of vertue of which our Philosophical Ladies so much talk Which heretical doctrine if they once hear her preach 't is not all the Armies in the world shall protect her from suffring the fate of Orpheus â—or shall you Sir with all your good language and other ingratiating Arts be able to vindicate hercause or secure your self from the hateful brand of a Woman-hater As therefore you value this Ephesian's free conversation or the favour of Ladies be sure you keep her to your self but if you will needs shew your self to be of the number of those open-breasted men who think no pleasure compleat until they have boasâ—ed of it yet at least be so just to the sacred Laws of friendship as never to reveal who brought her into England only for your private recreation and then leave her adversaries to consult their grand Oracle Lilly how to find out Most honoured Sir Your most Humble Servant The Ephesian MATRON A Certain Merchants Daughter of Ephesus having been long gazed upon by the admiring Youths of that populous and wealthy City and sought in marriage by many whose ample Fortunes encouraged them to hope for success answerable to their desires which could not be but just and commendable since fixed upon an Object whom an incomparable Beauty an ingenious Soul vertuous Education and that usual attendant of all these an honourable Fame had conspired to make an extraordinary Person This Virgin I say was at length espoused to a young Gentleman in whom nothing was wanting that could be required to make him accomplisht and amiable especially in her eye who loved him with equal ardours and thought of no felicity but in his mutual affections and society So that all men his envious Rivals only excepted expected the perfection of mortal happiness to arise from so rare a union But observe unconstancy of human felicity This pair of Turtles had not long enjoyed the pleasures of each others conversation when Fate seldom long propitious to Lovers steps in and divides them by the eternal divorce of death translating the Husband into a state of more durable delights and leaving the poor widdowed Lady in the arms of a distracting grief too excessive to fall under the description of the most tragical Pen and indeed so violent as would soon have sufficed to the destruction of so delicate and tender a Nature as hers was had not her resolution to see her dearest All so she called him laid into his Tomb with such Funeral Pomp and solemn Obsequies as were agreeable both to his quality and her sorrow somewhat conduced to her preservation Which yet was but an accidental preservative aâ—d such whose effect she could not directly aim at all the faculties of her wounded soul being wholly taken up with the image of her loss and excluding all light of comfort but those weak and faint glimpses that arose in her darksome imagination from her hopes to make haste and overtake him who was gone before But alas I speak much to the diminution of her fidelity when I call them Hopes they werâ— advanced to full Resolutions and those made unalterable by the sanction of a solemn vow to out-do the malice of death and by a speedy re-union of her spirit with his in the Elyzium to regain that content in the other World which the cruelty of the gods had ravisht from her in this And according to this too rigorous Vow she refuseth all nourishment admitting nothing into her mouth but the cold air and tears uncessantly distilling from her once bright and sparkling but now dim and blubber'd eyes and this notwithstanding the importunities of her Parents and Friends on one side and the necessities of Nature on the other urging her to commiserate and relieve her self In this sad condition she continued three whole days and nights aâ—horring all objects but what her grieâ— presented and keeping her conâ—â—â—ed remembrance perpetually upon â—he Rack to afford her the images of heâ— past felicities that might aggravate the resentments of her present misery Which yet being as she thought insufficient to exalt her sorrows to thâ— height of destroying her she privately conveys her self inâ—o the Vault wheâ—â— the remains of her Husband had been newly laid and there sits down upon the damp earth with her eyes fixt upon his Coffin lest her thoughts might chance to wander from their proper object It was great wonder that Nature Might suffer any creature To have such sorowe and she not ded Full piteons pale and nothing red She said a lay a maner souge Without note withouten song And was this for full well I can Reherse it right thus it began I have of sorrow so great wone That joy get I never none Nowe that I se my husband bright Whiche I have loved with all my might Is fro me deed and is agone And thus in sorowe left me alone Alas Dethe what yeleth the That thou noldest have taken me This you 'l say was a rare demonstrâ—â—ion of a Woman's constancy and ought not to be past over without admiration and an acknowledgement that this vertuous Matron well deserved to wear a Garland in that Troop of Heroiâ—al Wives who scorning to survive their better part their Husbands are honoured by posterity as examples of singular faith and conjugal amity And I shall also ingâ—nuously confess that her love must needs be great which transported her to so generous a pitch of sorrow and bravery of resolution I presume moreover that your pity is already risen to that height that are coâ—cerned in her danger and that you would most gladly run into the Vault â—o save her from a death so cruel so iminent But alas she is resolved upon it and your humanity would but degenerate into a prolongation of her afflictions For in life she knew no content but in the society of her Love whose mortal part was now in the cold fetters of an everlasting sleep and therefore remains holy uncapable of any the least consolation unless from this that she may be hastned in her journey to meet and embrace his beloved Ghost If therefore your commiseration will do any thing towards her comfort and repose pray exercise it in killing her and let the kindness of your sword suddainly prevent the lingring tortures of her famine and laments But I know you are too good-natured to have her die and but to suppose her after all this capable of being reconciled to life were the only way to make her and her whole Sex hate you What then is to be done in order to her Rescue Why have but patience a little and you shall see how miraculously Foâ—tune hath contrived to gratifie you and other her friends in her preservatioâ— It hapned that on the very same
also the immediate organ or instrument by which the nobler Soul informeth and acteth in the organs of the Body Now though we deny not but the rational Soul in respect of this her alliance with the Body is in some degree subject to the Laws of Matter and consequently that the humours and temperament of the Body have some influence or power to alter and work upon the mind especially in weak-minded persons who make no use of the arms of their reason to encounter and subdue the insurrections and assaults of sensual appetites Yet cannot we grant that the impressions which the body makes upon the mind are such as suffice to question either the Immortality or derogate from the Soveraignty of the Soul over the Body Not the Immortality of it because as an Infant in the Mothers womb though sympathising with the Mother in all distempers accidents and symptoms that befall her during the time of the Child's connexion to her body is yet capable of being in his due season separated from her and emancipated from his first state of compatibility into another of single subsistence So the Rational Soul though during its connexion to the Body subject to all affections and sufferings thereof is yet nevertheless capable of being separated in due season from the Body and surviving it to eternity in a state of â—implicity and incompatibility Nor the Soveraignty of it over the Body because as a Monarch notwithstanding he hath soveraign and absolute power over his Subjects may sometimes be inclined by the sway of his servants and yet without either subjection of his Person or diminution of his power So the Soul though sometimes the affections of its subject the Body may incline or dispose it to assent and compliance yet doth not that detract from either the excellency of its nature or the absoluteness of its dominion over the Body Besides all those mutations of the affections that arise from the variety of humours and temperament of the Body whether caused by Diet Wine or otherwise are most â—nduely imputed to the Mind or reasonable Soul it self whose essence being simple severeth it from all essential mutations and indeed extend no farther than the Sensitive or the Brain which is its principal organ So that as it doth not derogate from the skill and ability of an excellent Musitian that he cannot make good Musick upon an ill and untuneable Instrument so likewise doth it not from the dignity of the Soul that it cannot maintain the harmony of its Government where the Brain is out of tune And this we think sufficient to evince that the mutual league or alliance betwixt the Body and Mind is not so inseparable but the Mind may both continue its Soveraignty while that league continueth and also continue its Being after the same league is dissolved by death But if the Adversary shall further urge us to informe him What kind of â—ubstance we then conceive the Soul to be we shall ingeniously confess We do not understand it Nor are we ashamed of that ignorance forasmuch as the knowledge thereof is to be fetched not from Reason or Philosophy but from Revelation Divine For seeing the substance of the Soul was not deduced or extracted in its creation from Matter or Elements as is manifest even from the transcendency of its functions and operations certainly it follows that the Laws of Matter or Elements can in no wise comprehend its nature or lead to the knowledge of its substance but leaving Philosophy to its proper objects we must expect it from the inspiration of the same Divinity from whence the substance of it was originally derived But inspirations Divine being very rare our best way will be to suspend such subtle and Metaphysical Enquiries till death which will soon satisfie them and all other difficulties of that nature In the mean time we beg excuse for thus long digressing into so grave and unsutable a Speculation which yet we could not well avoid from our Story and for holding you upon the rack of suspense while your good nature makes you impatient till you are assuâ—ed of the Ladie 's perfect recovery Returning to our Matron I find my self surprised with more of wonder and amazement than the Souldier was when he first beheld her Methinks I perceive certain symptoms in her which signifie not only a change of humour but even a perfect metamorphosis of her person also and so strangely is she altered that did not the continuance of her mourning habit and yet she hath dropt her Veil together with the circumstances of time and place assure me to the contrary seriously I should not easily be perswaded that she is the same woman She appears now to have so little of the sorrowful Widow in her that if I might have the liberty Physiognomists take of divining by outward signes I should take her for the most pleased and happy Bride in the world Her forehead seems not only smoothed but dilated also to a more graceful largeness and over-cast with a delicate sanguine Dye Her eyes sparkling again with luster yet little more then half open with their amiable whites turned somewhat upward unsteady bedewed with a Ruby moisture by stealth casting certain languishing glances such as are observed only in persons dying and Lovers in the extasie of delight upon the Souldier Her lips swelling with a delicious ver-million tincture and gently trembling yet still preserving the decorum and sweetness of her mouth Her cheeks overâ—lowing with pleasing blushes Her head a little declinâ—ng as when Modesty hath a secâ—et conflict with Desire She is in â— kind of gentle disquiet such as accompanieth the impatience of the soul when it is eager and restless in pursuâ—â— of the object whereon it hath fixed itâ— chief felicity A temperate and Balmy sweat extilling from the pores of her snow-white skin helps to increase the kindly warmth of it arising doubtless from a great agitation of her spirits within and an effusion of them upon the outward parts together with â—he vapours of her purest bloud In a word I discern in her a concourse of all â—hose signes which as natural and inseparable characters are proper to great joy and pleasure What therefore should I think To imagine that she a woman of exemplaâ—y constancy of chastity more cold and severe than the Goddess her self who iâ— said to be guardian of it of sorrow as your self can witness almost unparallel'd and invincible whose tears are yet scarcely dry still fitting in a damp and horrid Charnel-house at the dead time of the night and upon the Coffin of her Dearest All To imagine I say that this Woman should be so soon ingulphed in the delightful transports of a new Love and that with a Fellow so much a Stranger so much her Inferiour This certainly is not only highly improbable but unpardonably scandalous and he doubtless would have no easie task to secure himself from being torn in pieces by those of her Sex who
soon disgorge the delicious morsels of the first For Returning to the Soâ—ldier whom not many minutes since we left in a condition of so much joy and pleasure that Caesar himself had he beheld him could not have foâ—born to envy his felicity and wish himself in his place we find a greater change in him than he had lately wrought in the despairing Matron and perceive him striving more to destroy himself than he had before to preserve Her Fear Anger Rage and Despair have conspired to distract him One while he casteth up his eyes that flame with fury beats his breast tears his hair stampeth upon the ground and useth all the gesture of a man transported to perfect madness with sudden and violent passion Another while he stands unmoved silent and with eyes fixt upon the earth as if he were consulting the infernal spirits what to do with himself Then suddenly starting he rouls about his sparkling eyes lifts up his head sighs as if he would crack the Fibres of his heart and breaks foâ—th into short and incoherent but desperate ejaculations He exclaims even against Heaven he defies Fate to make him more miserable he reproaches Fortune with her giddiness he curses the malevolence of his Stars and renounces Providence Now he condemns himself for negligence then he reflects upon the innocent Woman as the unhappy occasion of his wretchedness and thinking that then he had lighted upon the true and chief cause of his Calamity he falls to imprecate all the plagues and dire mischiefs in nature upon the heads of her whole Sex and vomits out these blasphemies against them Ah Woman woman saith he why did Nature make you unless repenting the perfection she had given to Man she found out you to lessen it again For Man who otherwise would be more than half Divine only by being obnoxious to the coâ—rupt temptations of Woman is made less then half Human. What misery ever befell him in which Woman had not a hand What crime did he ever commit to which she did not incite him What Tragedy hath at any time been acted in the Theatre of the world in which a Woman had not her part What war What desolation What ruine hath not found its beginning in that mischievous Sex How many mighty Nations flourishing Kingdoms prosperous Common-wealths populous Cities and noble Families have owed their destâ—uction to either the Malice or Pâ—ide or Lust of Woman What are you Women but the poyson of Man's Innocence and Peace which Nature hath gilded over with a splendid out-side that we might swallow it down with the less suspicion All your beauties all your charms are but like the apples of Sodom which have fair and inviting rinds and yet within are nothing but stinking dust you are the tâ—ue Sirens that enchant us with the melody of your voyce and then hold us captives in the chains of beastial slavery You are the true Hiena's that allure us with the fairness of your skins and when folly hath brought us within your reach you leap upon us and devour us You are the traiters to Wisdom the impediment to Industry the obstacles to honour the softners of coÌ„urage the perturbers of tranquility the clogs to virtue and goads that drive us to all Vice Impiety and Ruine You are the Fools Paradise the Wisemans Plague and the grand Error of Nature What shall I say I want words to express your pravity as I did my Reason when I set my foot into this unlucky this fatal place Detestor omnes horreo fugeo execror Sit ratio sit natura sit dirus furor Odisse placuit Having thus belched out this invective against poor innocent Women who deserved much better language at his hands his wild imagination which catcheth at any thing wheels about and he thus vomits the remainder of his Choller upon himself What damned Spirit was it that conducted me into this Charnel-house and made me quit my duty Where was the care and Vigilancy of my Good Angel when he left me to be seduced into this dismal Vault Would I had fallen into a den of Lyons and Tygers when I lighted upon this Woman here then had I dyed innocent and without dishonour whereas now I have contracted a guilt whose punishment is an infamous death and that inevitable unless I prevent the stroke of Justice and become my own Executioner Which being the only refuge my Disaster hath left me why am I thus slow in addressing my self unto it why do I waste that time in weak and fruitless complaints which I ought to imploy in delivering my self from the extreamity of my misfortune that is yet to come Dye I must by sentence of the Magistrate why then should I defer to fall by my own hand To vindicate ones self from extream and otherwise inevitable Calamity by Sui-cide is not certainly a Crime but an act of Heroique Fortitude I am resolved thereâ—ore my sword shall prevent the ignominy of the Gallows and by forcing open the Gates of death I will stop up the way to publique shame Caecus esâ— ignis stimulatus ira Nec Regicurat patiturvé fraenos Haâ—d timet mortem cupit ire in ipsos obvius enses Here he puts a period to his desperate Harangue and hasting to put one to his life also he suddainly unsheath's his sword and beginning to set the Hilt of it upon the ground that he may cast himsâ—lf upon the point he is most seasonably prevented by the pious Matron Who being all this while ignorant of the Cause of his Fury had been wholly possessed with amazement at the extravagant effects of it so that she minded not a word of all those bitter reproaches he had cast forth against her whole Sex but quickly â—owsed out of the stupifying fit of wonder wherewith she had been invaded by seeâ—ng him draw his sword she throws her self into his arms and partly by grasping his hands partly by the charms of her kisses teaâ—s and entreaties she so far becalms his rage as that he seems not unwilling to prorogue at least the execution of that self-assasination he intended until he had convinced her of the necessity of it He tells her therefore in shoâ—t that the body of a certain notorious villain which he had been appointed to guaâ—d was taken down from the Gibbet anâ— convey'd away that the penalty of â—he like death denounced by the Governour against him and his fellows who had transferred the whole charge upon his care and vigilancy was certain and inevitable unless he killed himselfe by way of prevention that if she could have any sentiments of kindness for so unfortunate a wretch as this sad Accident had made him there was now no way left for her to express them but by permitting him quietly to avert the infamy of a publique Execution by a private with-drawing himself into the other world and that it was some content to him in this his Agony that he should leave his body to be dissolved