ESSAYS OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE Being LETTERS written by two Gentlemen One dissuading from LOVE the other an Answer thereunto With some CHARACTERS and other Passages of Wit Si quando gravabere curis Haec lege pro moestae medicamine mentis habete London Printed for H. Brome at the Gun in S. Paul's Church-yard 1673. SIC DONEC The Right Hon. ble Scroop Egerton Earl of Bridgwater Vâ—scount Brackley Baron of Elsmere 1703 THE Book-seller to the Reader ' T Is Expectation that makes the best welcome and therefore I question not what acceptance this Second Edition of the Essays of Love and Marriage may find I was very seasonably presented with a short Discourse conteining what is remarkable in the late Piece called Reflections on Marriage before the committing of this to the Press Which being suitable as well in the Subject as in its Bulk to the former Essays I have linked them together It matters not whether I praise it with a commendatory Frontispiece Good Wine wants no Bush But not being in this an indifferent Judge I might not in my Attempt be much regarded Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces However I hope the same Fate will not attend this as does the Subject now adays to remain uncourted but to find Acceptance with all which will answer my Design to please you and profit my self Yours Hen. Brome To his Honoured Friend being in Love I. True Friend BUt that I know heresie is fashionable and madness 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 lock d up from all the world but thy own thoughts and only conversant with thy self yet formerly pleasant and affable desirous and desired of Society and one that I know has lived no Anchoret upon Earth nor yet hast had thine eyes tied up to any one face but hast both view'd 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 only 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 Virtue thy Country Parents Kinred Friends or what is of worth but to the Female Sex and in thy sense where Sensuality cannot but have an interest though licenc'd by an Ordinance 't is only Love scandal'd it being to the pity of the poor Passion I speak it but concupiscence handsomly burnisht or a carnal appetite speciously intitled And therefore could I never win my judgment to affirm that the most eager of sinners were in love with sin but only temptingly seduced to a vicious doting they did rather erroneously affect than truly love But let me enquire into thy Passion what is it from the paint of Nature those beautiful flowers of red and white Methinks thou shouldst as well be enamour'd with thy Mistris ' 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 prodigal of thy Affection as to waste it on such incertainties bind 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 find in her as first his fansie gives her For I dare challenge thee to shew me but one Face in the whole world that all opinions will give in for beautiful so that Lovers as thou call'st them are but in the number of Pagans they but worship that Idol which themselves have made May be thou wilt tell me of manners carriage and virtue I am very glad to hear of it but let not thy Passion hang in thy eyes when thou lookest on them for many of them their Gestures are but School-postures and seem rather like a Motion than a Carriage Consider that in the presence of their Servants they are on the Stage and 't is rather Action than Behaviour it may be wert thou a peeper on them in thier withdrawing rooms thou wouldst as much wish thine eyes closed then as now open For their virtues as I will not disallow the judgment of that Reverend Doctor That 't is possible to find some virtue 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 find a Diamond on the shore than on the rock so but a spark of virtue in a woman gets greater reverence than 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 Virtue if from Beauty how wilt thou love her when she is old If from Virtue why dost thou covet to lie with her there needs not that low act of Generation to the high Communion of Virtues and I should scarce take thee for a Platonic Lover to warm a bed with her But shall I tell thee the cause don 't be afraid of truth then thou first lov'st 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 than 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 stomach and especially if thou limitest thy fansie to one dish thou hadst need to be both long in
art thy self a Lover and consequently mad or else more mad that thou art not a Lover I never yet knew any despise Monarchy but those that could not be Monarchs Every man in this is a Huntsman who coming short of the Hare cries Hang her 't is dry meat Among the rest of thy wonders thou mayst put this for one that I who am unconcerned should at this distance take up the cudgels in defence of a friend whom thou hast laught into 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 quarrel 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 merely for want of clearing There is no man more unfit for this work than 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 than one so qualified nor can any find 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 only 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 Virtue and the rest which you reckon up with many more I deny not But all they as oblique objects are so far from being adequate that they draw Love in several 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 only 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 natural sense is both impossible and needless it deriving a greater influence from the sensitive soul and being a Passion from which Brutes are not exempt Nay that very thing which you call sensuality and will allow it to derive its legitimation only from an Ordinance may shew an antienter coat than Ordinances it being the only way chalked out by nature for propagation and preservation of every species So that your Epithetes and Synonyma's of concupiscence and carnal appetite c. I attribute to the luxuriance of your fansie and must tell you we can easily give you your ways the like terms without the help of a Sylva But your main hesitancy is What are your causes of Love 'T is not bare red and white that are either causes of or colours for it but the situation 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 retein 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 find 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 Pygmalion that carves to himself a Mistris will you from thence infer that because all men do not think one face beautiful no man should think any so And I appeal to the Synod of Divines whether for a Lover to chuse his own Mistris and love her or court her be a piece of ignorance or paganism Nor can you deny that manners carriage and virtue 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 than 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 than women 'T is true much action and deceptio visus is in both sexes in point of Courtship whereby they reciprocally draw their expectations to an height unobteinable and succeeding enjoyments convince both Sexes of a handsom but commonly an equal cheat I shall not only allow of that Doctors charity that held That 't is possible some virtue may be found in some women but also shall experimentally add That much virtue may be found in many 'T is not for nothing that all virtues are declined by Grammarians with haec and fansied by Painters in female shadows Virtues are like Diamonds rare and small nor should we esteem them were they to be bought by the pound I take virtue and beauty to be causes of affection but I mean not by beauty the mere superficies of a visage but the symmetry of parts and he that grounds his affection rightly on that finds a becoming beauty even in old Age. Virtue also I conceive a cause of love and love a motive of copulation Nor is generation for the communion of virtues 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 Jacob's staff 't is so to you so the Wolf conceives all creatures to eat raw flesh because he does I cannot imagin such a Stocial 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 itself blameable but circumstances may make it so
for the Stoies 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 synecdoche which being considered it will follow That men abstracted from desires of this nature are rather to be looked for than found And for your erratical Love that is so planetary and unfixed it shews its own weakness but not your strength though it be periparetical it makes not you a Philosopher since Love like Sun-beams being diffused are but faint but contracted to one object are fervent and calefactory Wives are not Quelque choses in whom only variety breeds delight but are solid food which never nauseate sound stomachs For a man to love Virtue abstracted from its subject is to fansie a Chymaera but Virtue in a woman is an undoubted motive As to your similitude of Joan and my Lady take the whole Proverb put in in the dark and you are answered 'T is not want of difference but due discerning nor is she as good but seems so The Cuckow once sang better than the Nightingal but remember who was Judge Times swift motion and youths transitoriness are common places in the beaten roads where ever travelling wit baits and refreshes himself in his pilgrimage But yet desires being part of the soul and so immortal do not decay in age but only alter their motives and object Nor is the world barren of examples of aged men eagerly desiring and performing rites of conjuncture with women As for those changeable and quick silver minds which love and loath in a moment 't is their Vice and may give you this notion That as their love can so soon and easily change into disdain so your present scorn may turn to a dotage on the like ground And though perhaps you have not yet been in love 't is commune malum since you will call it so like the Small-pox every one hath been or must be troubled with it and bodies unacquainted with lesser discases are irrecoverably swallowed up of greater Your wary advice to your friend to love with discretion I allow and commend and for my part were I to love again would not go a foot further than my counter-part should meet me but where I found real love I would scorn to be out-vied being of Alexander his resolution No creature should conquer me with love or hatred 'T is not good to play the Butcher with that naked Sex that have no Arms but to embrace with nor Empiric-like kill them by whole-sale I never yet met any of either Sex good at the sport but at last they met with a requital 'T is within the memory of man since a pregnant Spark furnished with two of your Cardinal Virtues wit and disdain flung his fire-balls of contempt on the whole Sex courted some into dotage and then jeer'd 'um who at last fell foul on a Kitchin-wench and doted who repaid him with the same devices and which was worst at last in despight married him Homicida is of both Genders and belongs to both Sexes Your other points of marrying for wealth and yoke-fellowship I shall agree to with silence But I would not make wealth my Mistris's Master while woman stands by like the Chamber-maid with a broom to attend her Let my Mistris be a figure and her portion the cyphers which added to her advance her much but of themselves signifie nothing Passionate Courtship should but cannot be avoided by all every one is not Hercules but dissimulation may and must be shun'd by all There is no Soldier beleaguers a Garison but with hopes to come off untouched no Lover attempts a Mistris but hopes for fruition without bloudshed yet the Soldier may receive a shot and the Woer a repulse and that which he intends for a sin oft proves a punishment He that lives a Catholic Woer may at last come to the Purgatory of a general contempt But methinks Friend you wheel about and approve that which at first you decried there might be some hopes of agreement and band shaking between us Allow love and marriage and I will join with thee against dotage and would have Love sequestred from dotage as much as thy mind from this obstinacy But I see the Devil has always a cloven foot you would now allow of Marriage without Love and confound love and dotage as if the same To wed without Love is to be tied by the loins like a Monkey to a bed-post neither is it possible to court or marry without love as you write for that want of love turns courtship to flattery and marriage to a bargain That Women are Natures Errata with Aristotle I acknowledge and that they study temptations is undoubtedly true but yet that they do it not alone your own example proves who by this fansie of Anti-womanism tempt the sex so much that I could wish my self one to dote on thee Do not call the lawful and necessary intermixture of both Sexes to be a base prostitution of the Reason Soul and Gallantry of a Man 't is so false and groundless it deserves no answer but the lie Let thy friend alone with his choice and if he think her so she is peerless only I admit your caution While he seeks to win her let him not lose himself nor shoot away all his shot at one volley but keep a reserve for a fresh encounter t is but discretion And now to answer your similitudinary Question Why a woman cannot be viewed with as little ardour as a Statute it is because a Statue is not a Woman nor directly like a Woman if it could be Pygmalion will tell you there may be like affection nor is the influence different as to the eye but the power that actuates it if a man view a thousand Pictures he generally likes one best and having perused all returns to that and though the Market be free and Wares various a good Chapman sticks to what he best fansies and deals in it Neither is all perfection thereby impaled in one Creature but there may be enough supposed in one to content one That your self hath ever loved I question but that you have fansied and mist may be true but you cannot thereby go out a competent Tutor Nor should I ever take that Mariner for my Pilot who hath no other experience than splitting his own Ship first guide your own Vessel to the Port before you take another to your management and steerage What it is to be sick of Love or the Plague you know much alike and so shall be believed having studied both but in shape for my part I have known many sick of Love and yet recovered but the Plague I have no skill in My desire is that you participate of your own counsel suspend your severe censure to your
friend and sit first a strict Judge on your self till time and experience ripen your judgment and change your mind Which I hope I shall not longer expect than until you have seriously perused and weighed the experimental directions and wholsom advice of Thine and thy Friends Friend A.B. III. IT is said concerning Diogenes that he enjoyned his friends that should be concerned about the manner of his interment to bury him in a prone posture that when the world should be turned upside down he might remain in a more decent and the usual situation with his face upwards One would think that this conversion is either now adays approaching or has lately suffered it if we consider how much we are overgrown with a new Generation of men the Wits of the Age who by their gestures and humours not only design to oppose and deride the primitive manners and well digested Principles of their Ancestors but have of late planted their squirting and airy Wits to bedash the sacred state of Wedlock that if possible they might unpeople the world and usher in its expiration with their own decease as if conscious to themselves of the vitiousness of those principles they have imbibed and the public miscarriages they are guilty of endeavour to obstruct a surviving posterity that would pity their ignorance and explode their examples It is now the Opinion of those who pretend to understand most that the world has been fool'd in nothing more than in an idle and tame submitting to the Fetters of Marriage that some one unknown to them did most injuriously inslave so many Generations with this dull institution which did upon that account lose the freedom and vigour of generous actions and miscarried in those Essays that would have shewn a greater Bravery and Glory of mind but when we shall find that the world has not received greater Benefits by the Idolaters of Liberty than from the Votaries of Wedlock we shall be able to return so criminable a charge The highest wisdom took the prospect of all the species and established what was the benefit and good of all and not what might please the humour of some who starting up in particular generations and making a noise amongst those whom they lived could yet with no justice reproach the prudence that governed their fathers with which they are displeased through the capriciousness of their own folly and not the defect of precept which like Beds and Couches are not to be accused because they are uneasie to the sick and distempered This institution like power ows its glory to the respect is paid it whilst every thing that is neglected is by that scorn rendred cheap and contemptible and any disesteem Marriage lies under is not from the inconveniences are found in it but only ariseth from the incivility of those times that forbear to respect it If persons would study to do it justice we should find it again with the same Votaries about it and not like dethron'd Monarchs without its state and unattended Marriage laid the foundation and first principle of civil society it was a yoak for which the neck of Innocence was not too soft and delicate and a condition governed by unerring virtue had yet need of these Allotments as to the advantages and improvements of society and that which Marriage appropriated was the first proclaming of Mine and Thine The earth was common and the enjoyments of it had an undistinguish'd right whilst the concernments of the bed were sacred and separate in all things else we can allow a sharer but in the Interests of our Love To oblige Mankind by an obligation sacred and unaltered to the affairs and interests of one Love was an act of that prudence and wisdom against which none can dispute We can with no equity raise a title to more since the Law of Nature proclames that loving of one should be for enough and that sex must have been left in a condition wholly base and mercenary to have took the pay of every Amour There would have been set up a Tyranny in Love which must have been the most cruel and insupportable of others because exercis'd on the best interests of life The force of conquest had been a sufficient title to the objects we had coveted But Marriage puts the world into Discipline and a happy Government inclosing the common injoyment that none might lay claim to the portion of another Had beauty and the possession of that Sex been left a prey to the Conqueror and subject to be born away by the most forcible Courtships Mankind must have ever dwelt jealous of each other proclaming an enmity against all the world and have judged their power alone a sufficient defence But by the force of Matrimonial Laws and the Allotments made us from above we live in quiet and security with each other who must else have stood perpetually on our guard and secured what we had loved from the wandring lusts of others The world must have been perpetually involved in quarrels since Love is more restless and more impatient than Ambition and whilst a charming object had many claimers she must at last have yielded to the conqueror and not have gratified the Passion of the most deserving but the most happy being without the exercise of that Empire which Halcyon laws had gave her that must have been wholly lost amidst the animosities of Rivals But since Love is preserved in these bounds its excellencies and advantages remain to the world its childish and troublesom qualities are cut off by Laws it s made tame and gentle which would else have devoured the fairest concernments of the Universe since the Love it cuts off and regulates it could not have born and the Love it manages it cannot spare But why this condition is deemed so contemptible and dreaded by the Libertines of our times is by reason of that severe censure they harbour of it to be as full of Plagues as Pandora's Box no sooner shall we admit of it but presently find our selves to be fettered with cares and perplexities and therefore celebrate a single life for its freedom and repose But let me ask them who found in a mortal state that tranquillity they have pretended to admire what condition of Life is there that is always serene quiet and undisturb'd and although cares may attend that estate more than other conditions yet those Advantages and Blessings those sweet societies which proceed from it are able to sweeten its crosses ease its burdens and retrieve whatever is deemed tedious And although they can shew us the life of some rude and melancholy Philosopher who in his retirements lockt up from the world and Vatia-like lies buried in a dreaming Idleness boasteth of quiet and repose We can shew them many examples of virtuous men living not only contentedly but admired in the eyes of Matrimony spreading their useful qualities as well as issues whilst the Stoic has permitted his virtue to droop and wither in
the shade of his own humor An excellent person may do much for the world with his own sufficiency but he doubly obliges it who in a Seminary of Hero's is continually propitious to it and by the force of embraces causes lives to those Generations which stand next the worlds last calenture and burning fit Pompey did not only fight himself for the Liberty of Rome till he was its greatest and mightiest sacrifice but left also those gallant sons who bravely endeavoured to revive it when faint and dying We shine with a solitary virtue without the irradiations of an Off-spring and beside it loseth its lustre and strength when it is obliged to wander in various enterteinments How had the world suffered if a person who by many generous actions became the darling of Mankind neglecting to transinit a copy from so beloved and glorious an Original had set at once in his being and his race In antient wars infants have been carried to encourage battels thereby with their unactive bloud strangely animating the veins of others and it hath moreover been found to work much upon the disposition of human nature a kind of gallant affection for the memory of some glorious person left to the guidance of a tender hand Such efforts served the race of the African and the Gothic Hero procuring to the world this belief and benefit together that he which leaves his virtue an orphan may have erected for it the Hospitals of stately tombs and the Panegyrics of history but he that would have it lasting and useful as well as admired must leave it to his Issue where in the active torrent of generous performances it may accumulate the same glory and esteem it found in the days of an ancestor To be only admired is a barren advantage to be useful and to be beloved is what the truly noble rather covet which is found in the virtues and good offices of our race Neither shall we find any men of a more noble gallantry as amongst those duo fulmina belli I mean Pompey and Brutus men not only religiously prizing the married state but such as were blessed with the society of those women that for the returns of love and kindness were famous in every generation We chuse friendship as a field for virtue to reap advantages in and none but retired and treacherous natures will be without the blessings of that But without all question that friendship is the noblest bound in the surest Ligaments that is commenced in Marriage than any took up on other scores No nation could have flourished nor have been successful in its affairs if a wanton flame had consum'd the manly temper and vigour of youth or if their Passions had not transported them to such violent actions yet the gentlest concernments of those flames incensing the animosities and jealousies of rivalship the prodigality of amorous addresses had dislodged all Braveries of mind and baffled all those advantages with which they should have served their Generations And therefore all wise and prudent Governments knew they should have but little order and less of industry where the affairs of an idle passion possessed the hearts and heads of their Subjects Marriage gives the thoughts a home and hereby betimes the inconstant and flitting fansie is directed to an aim and kept stedfast by a peculiar authority that would else be captivated by the wandring lusts of stews and concubines And who does not that is bias'd by reason take more pleasure in managing the interests of a family and a lasting name by an happy issue than in cherishing a short-liv'd inclination The want of a just interest to manage has brought in those Inconveniences that are found in the world and that pleasantness and gayness which is childishly called good humor so much idolized in the single life what is it but a trifling and strange impertinence a thing without all conduct and prudence and after the follies of youth are over even insupportable to those who have the most admired it What Judgment can we pass on this any otherwise than that they lavishly spend the prudent stock of nature which becoming bankrupt by excessive practices they are after forced to yield to those humors which speak the wants and poverties of nature which designed no man to that vanity as to be taken up with the contemplation of his own endowments like the fantastic Youth who made Love to and died for it himself He that gathers the stock of his own endowments into his own breast and keeps them there like roses that grow in deserts he dies uncommended and unenjoy'd Virtue is diffusive and loves occasions to exercise its vivacy and vigor what we carry about us sufficiently declares that we were not designed to be happy alone whilst both the solace of the mind and an endeared life consist in an union with something different A Letter to a Friend delivering an Opinion of the Scotch Rising SIR THat you may receive an Account of the Scotch business and that there hath been such irresolute alteration about the Treaties lately 't is fit you know this Northern storm like a new disease hath so far posed the Doctors of State that as yet they have not given it a name though perchance they all firmly believe it to be rebellion and therefore Sir it is no wonder if these do here as the learned in Physic who when they know not certainly the griefâ— prescribe Medicines sometimes too strong sometimes too weak The truth is we here judge concerning the Scotch affairs much after the rate as Mortals do of the Moon the simple think it no bigger than a bushel and some likewise think it a vast world with strange things undiscovered in it two ill ways of casting it up sure the first will make us too secure the other too fearful I confess I know not how to write in the middle and set it right nor do I think you know since I should believe the question rather to be A King or no King then A Bishop or no Bishop In great mutinies and insurrections of this nature pretences speciously conscionable were never wanting and indeed they are necessary for rebellion is of itself so ugly that did it not put on the visor of Religion it would affright rather than draw people unto it and being drawn could not hold them without it Imaginary cords that seem to fasten man to heaven have tied things here below faster than any other obligation If it be liberty of conscience they ask it is a foolish request seeing they have it already and must have in despite of power For as Theodoret saith to the Jews Nemo cogitur credere invitus If they exercise that liberty 't is dangerous for not three men are of the same opinion in all and then each family must have a war within itself Look upon the long preparations and consider withal that Prophesies are ceased and therefore they could not foretell this Book should be sent