those who cannot or will not comply with their wills and if that which they love seriously be not complaisant enough to their purpose their love is turned into hatred which ends in poisons treasons conspirations and other attemptt upon the honor and life of those who have nothing so dear to them as their innocence Of many Tragical Histories take this Lucitia so passionately loved her husband that to bring him to her desire she gave him Aconite a deadly poison mistaking it for a love-potion of which he died instantly The same Author saith also that Cyanippe was so extremely jealous of her husband that she suspecting his custom of hunting was a pretence to his courting of other Ladies went out into the Forrest to espy it out but she could not so well conceal her self but the Dogs bearing a brusling of the leaves ran upon her and tore her in pieces at which her husband was so grieved that he killed himself in the place In these two stories there is more of indiscretion than cruelty but that of Ariadne is more doleful and Tragical because the Emperor Zeno Isauricus her husband was not so serviceable to her as she desired she caused him to be buried alive a most horrible cruelty I hope and firmly believe that the wise and discreet will bear me no ill-wil for as contraries set together do make one another show the better so these Satyres and Anatomies of vice will make the nobleness the excellency the vertues of good women whom I will maintain to be equal in number with the bad to be more illustrious For though the wise man saith He could find none 't was not that he would absolutely deny there was none but he would express that when a woman doth well she is not to be considered in the quality of a woman or according to the inclination of her sex but as having a Masculine spirit a martial courage and the heart of a man for as there are effeminate men so are there masculine women and of a more magnanimous mind than many men and indeed the greatest contumely that can be cast upon debaucht and loose men is to call them effeminate and the greatest praise that can be given to women is to name them virile and martial To which purpose Erasmus saith That Ennius in blaming the inconstancy and lightness of some young men could find no better words to his purpose then to tell them that they had the spirit of women Vos etenim juvenes animos geritis muliebres For as the Poet saith in the Fourth of the Aeneids Women are changeable every hour Laertius observes in the Sixth Book of the lives of Philosophers that Diogenes finding a young youth delicately trim'd curl'd and a la mode the Madam said unto him I marvel that thou art not ashamed of thy shame counterfeiting and disguising thy nature she made thee a man and thou makest thy self a woman by this female trimming and feminine delicacies Philo the Jew in his Book of Strength and Courage saith That God intending the man should show himself couragious in his actions in his deportments and in his habit forbad him expresly as we may see in Deut. 22. that he should never wear the habit of women Vir non utetur veste foeminea nec mulier veste virili Whereupon this learned Hebrew infers That God forbids men the garments of a woman because he ought not to have the lead feminine thing in or about him but that he should be vigorous in all his actions and so contrarily to the woman However the case be now most certain it is that God made her for an ornament of human kind for a comfort to our nature and to sweeten the miseries of our life for the contentment of men and to People the heavenly Paradise to which the blessed TRINITY conduct and bring us All. Advice of the Author to Vertuous WOMEN My LADIES IT is reported that the invincible Hercules being one day upon an adventure found in the open field Vice and Vertue in the guise of two women of different age and habit and easie to be known by their outward behaviour Both of these seeing this young man in search of some delightful good to perpetuate the contentment of his mind during the course of his life not deeming himself happy enough in his excelling Lions Tygers Centaurs and Gyants in strength presented themselves before him with all sorts of recompences and promises Vice to draw him the sooner to her discretion and charm more feelingly and forcibly his will and affections offered her self to his eyes in the shape of a young and fair Damsel ennobled with all the Beauties enriched with all the Pearls Diamonds and Jewels imaginable to be found in the East or in the bosome of Nature cloathed with the most precious raiment that can be had from the Merchants made fit to her goodly and exact stature with so much neatness modishness and sutablenese that it was enough to make heaven amorous of her beauty and the Sun himself jealous of all those who thenceforward should think themselves worthy of her affections She addressing her self thus to Hercules in this goodly array promised him That if he would partake of her favours and follow her in all things she would lead him through a way strewed with Roses with Lillies and Aromatick flowers unto the safe Haven of extreme Content which he should receive in the enjoyment of honors grandeurs pleasures estate and riches in the grace and favour of all the great Monarchs of the Earth But that at the end of that pleasant race and at taking his leave of this to go into the other world he could hope for nothing but an accumulation of misery grief pain and suffering Vice having finished her Oration and the tender of her promises Vertue being desirous to gain to her so brave a courage went another way to work appearing to him in the form of an old Matron all wrinckled dishevel'd deformed and bended cloathed as poorly and simply as might be in which posture seeing Hercules disgusted at her and to turn away his eyes she bespoke him in this manner Hercules I am not a finikin spruce beautiful woman nor so richly adorned as that woman which just now spoke with you and gave you those sweet and pleasing words therewith to bait your affections charm your will and render thee her slave I will not promise thee riches nor the pleasures of the world nor the favours of Princes nor to lead thee a way diversifi'd with sports and pastims But I dare assure thee that if thou wilt follow me in a way full of briers thorns flints rough and abrupt difficult and hard to climb to the top of a Mountain I will give thee to taste all sorts of delicacies pleasures and contentments not for a few days or years but for eternity and for ever Hercules having heard Vertue began to disdain Vice with all her caresses and temporary pleasures and consider
designing the ruine of his honor his life and all his fortunes it hath the devil for its grandsire pride for its father envy for its mother a wicked mind for its abode and the vertue of another for its matter The devil being the author of this vice it was very fit he should bear the name of it for Diabolus is as much as to say Calumniator a railing accuser It was he who intending the ruine of the world in the persons of our first parents calumniated in the delusion of the woman the commandment of God perswading her that he envied the contentment and felicity of man and that he willed not that he should be like unto Him a lie as false as detestable from whence we infer That Calumny is the devils Pensil Baelzebub's stamp and mark the ruine of vertue and a pattern or example of such as are graduates in the school of ignorance For 't is the custome of the foolish wanting reason and truth to have recourse to biting words to make use of such teeth and claws to bite and scratch and tear innocent souls and such as thought not any way of offending them So that whosoever would embrace an innocent life and be a lover of vertue must firmly resolve to arm himself against the battery of venomous tongues and to rest assured that a world of enemies whom he knows not will be knocking at the door of his conscience For it is the portion of the children of God to undergo the persecution of tongues and extremely happy are they that suffer it in patience Blessed are you when men revile you and speak all evil of you And indeed if you observe you may see that such tongues meddle not with the wicked for Calumny being the daughter of Envy whose bent is against Vertue a stranger to them it follows that they are not subject to reproaches But that which aggravates most of all this vice is that it measures others by the Ell of their demerits reproving them of that wherein themselves are guilty without heeding that antient Proverb Impudent is he that would cure a sore Not healing of himself having far more This is clearly to be seen in History the lustful wife of Potiphar accused chast Joseph to have attempted her but imaginary honour the same did those filthy Elders to the chast Susanna The enraged Jews deemed the Apostles the sons of God to be drunk with new wine hearing them speak in all Languages by the assistance of the Spirit of Truth But I shall not insist longer upon any story onely repeat these verses Calumny lodgeth in the proud man's head Hath in a troubled furious brain its bed Like to the Spider that what ere it takes To poison doth convert it vertue makes A vice to be and all brave actions counts Evil to be to râ—ason wrong amounts Like to the Wasps who in the heat appear Buzzing about and stings for hony bear Or like a villain Hostler that deceives The wearied Horses and them nothing leaves The bad don't this to th'bad for no man hates That which is like him but what discrepates The woman questionless is the most subject to this vice for handling her tongue so nimbly it is no marvel if very often it be injurious The Prince of Philosophers not onely terms her in his Politicks a babling creature but adds also That if at any time they happen to be eloquent 't is not to appear vertuous and wise but to give proof of their impatience in talk the clack of a mill is not so loud to the ears of passengers as the pratling detraction of women to the lovers of silence they will have sooner framed and reared a house full of injuries for the smallest thing in the world than the best workman in the earth could have contrived one they bestow so much industry and have such a faculty of defaming those they hate that their enemies are soon opprest and are constrained to give way to their calumnies although their integrity might render them as unmoveable and impregnable as a Rock I find a signal History in the 13 of the Acts the Sacred Text holds forth that the wicked Jews laying in wait for those two glorious Apostles St. Paul and Barnabas to make them depart from among them and to bring them into disgrace with the people advised among other ways therein this as the most expedient to employ certain religious and precise women who with no other weapons than their serpentine tongues so effected their designe did so strenuously by their forgeries and lies impose upon the people that they drove away those two Disciples out of the City with shame and if women of fragrant Devotion breathing nothing outwardly but Religion could so deceivingly abuse the Apostles the sons of God being also blameless no wonder if many others do the same especially to those who have no participation with their irregular affections St. Gregory the Great in the second book of his Dialogues chap. 23. reports That St. Bennet having two religious Votresses near his Monastery ordered one of his Monks that was the simplest and modestest of his Convent to serve them and administer all things to them that should be necessary for the maintenance of their life But in as much as the nobility of worldly extraction oftentimes puffs up the mind and courage of those that are so descended and are very rich withal these Gentlewomen could not any long time dissemble under the habit of mortification the vanity of their spirit and the poyson of their venomous tongues insomuch that they not onely contemned and despised the simplicity of the Monk that served them but they vex'd y injur'd and scoffed at him so often and in such a manner that the poor man not being longer able to endure it repaired to St. Bennet complaining and particularly enumerating the injuries and reproaches which for a long time he had endured from them without replying a word again St. Bennet having heard his complaint sent them word that if they would not refrain their tongues amend from their course of speaking evil and reform their manners that he would excommunicate them and cut them off from the participation of the Sacraments and from the communion of the faithful This threatning not prevailing to reform these two Nuns it hapned soon after they both died at their obsequies when according to their appointment Mass was to be said and the Deacon standing up according to the custom commanded all excommunicate persons to depart the Church the Nurse of these two Nuns going as is used for them to the offertory see them come out of their graves and to go out of the Church at the same time that the Deacon spoke the aforesaid words at which being much amazed but at last remembring her self of the threatning St. Bennet had used to them when alive that he would excommunicate them if they desisted not from the aforesaid injuries she went to the said holy Father and
of all other corporal hurts so the malice of a woman which is the principal of all evil is beyond all the wickednesses of the world I desire the vertuous to excuse me and do humbly beg their pardon I apply this onely to the bad whom again I call Q Quietis Quassatio Enemy of Quiet HE that would set before you all the characters and descriptions which the Antients have made of women both time and age would fail him sooner then matter and so although we have said many things in the precedeing Letter yet is it nothing in regard of that which may be said For it seems that heaven hath so much the more inspired grace and serious Authors to write against them by how much their wickedness hath encreased by aiding that spirit of darkness in the ruine of those souls destin'd to salvation and eternal glory St. Chrysostom writing upon the 19th chapter of St. Matthew saith among other things to abridge that which he said in this Homily Mulier est janua diaboli via iniquitatis Scerpionis percussio nocivumque genus est foemina Woman is the gate of hell the way of iniquity the biting of a Scorpion and a hurtfull kind of creature in all things Valerius writing to Ruffinus knew not better to describe a woman than by the Chimera who had the face of a Lion the belly of a Goat and the tail of a Viper For she hath saith he the fury and rage of a Lion the lechery of a Goat and the poison of a Viper The Philosopher Simonides as Joseph Battus reports being asked what woman was gave her this definition Mulier est hominis confusio instabilis bestia continua sollicitudo indesinens pugna quotidianum damnum solitudinis impedimentum vitae continenti naufragium adulterii vas perniciosum pretium animal pessimum pondus gravissimum aspis insanabilis humanum mancipum Woman is the confusion of man an inconstant beast a continual care a combat without truce a daily trouble an impediment of privacy the shipwrack of a chast life a fraight of adultery c. And for these reasons the Antients used this Proverb Women is the vessel of the devil a stinking Rose a sweet poison for she is a vessel full of gall which men imagine to be delightful and pleasant St. Bernard in his 52d Sermon dares to call them the Instrument of the devil Read the Third Homily of Carthagena the Fourth Tome and other the like descriptions and what St. Jerom holds that a good woman is rarer than a Phoenix concluding that their number is so great that no body there is who is ignorant of their malice The Sieur de Fieuville Philosophying of the nature of bad women compares them first to the Chamaeleon which feeding it self with wind loves no man longer than the present to the Salamander who unagreeable to temperature designes no happier end than to expire in the flames to the Locust whose pleasure it is to skip about and through the fading flowers of the worlds inveaglement to the Syren which through its flattering charms feeds those devouring gulphs of Sicily to a continual Fire which never goes out to the ravenous putrid Harpies which seemed born in the world on purpose to torment man to shorten his life to nullifie his contentments debase his grandeur vilifie his perfections to abate his valour enfeeble his courage unfortunate his designes redouble his pains captivate his liberty impede his enterprises sink his fortune vex his quiet and load upon his spirit a thousand molestations which shall day and night without intermission turmoil him A hell of noise houlings shreeks and of so many torments that men are forced to give way by flying from them a manifest proof of their wickedness lightness and inconstancy And if we have recourse to Scripture we shall find that taciturnity and silence is the distinction between the good and evil women and that it is the special gift and grace of God Donum Dei mulier sensata tacita and joyns to that the 9th of the Proverbs Mulier stulta clamosa woman is foolish and full of noise and moreover that she is both ignorant and full of craft It is very true that effemina e persons wooers buffons and the gallants affect not silence in women although it be a perfection worthy of a thousand praises but do desirously hear the prattle the talk and the iliads of superfluous discourse being thence able to judge whether they be Ladies of pleasure But wise and vertuous men discerning the gift of God in bestowing of a wife and that silence is the most certain mark of vertue cannot prize too much such a happy match nor be too thankful to God For my part as nothing is more amiable in the world then peace and Quiet so nothing is more detestable than the fray and noise of womens tongues This made Cicero so handsomely retort it to those who upbraided him with forsaking his wife I cannot saith he serve my wife and Philosophy for either of them take up the whole man and it is as much trouble to attain to the perfection of the latter as to study the contentment of the former But that which renders a Philosopher incompatible with a woman is because nothing is more proper to the advance of his study then silence and quiet which a woman cannot possibly indulge him for she is always in action crying wauling or roaring either against her domesticks or her neighbours or strangers who come to visit the master of the houshold finding a thousand inventions to force words from those who refuse to speak conformable to their will The proof of this lies in the Bake-house the market the beating of the Buck where they meet in great numbers those places being the onely rendezvous of that cackle and noise of women If you shall think this to be a small imperfection you are deceived a hundred Leagues for this is the very condition of the damned who without ceasing do howl cry and blaspheme against the Divine Majesty as also against those who have been the occasion of their ruine this we more visibly fee in those Spectra and other damned spirits which come into certain houses and in some particular places make so much noise and cause so much disturbance even to the most resolute that they are glad to be gone So we proceed to term her in the next Letter according to experience as she hath been to Houses and Families R Regnorum Ruina Ruine of Realms IT were an impossible attempt if I should think to write the several misfortunes and miseries of men deceived by women unacquainted in the School of wisdom and vertue wherefore I shall omit those tears plaints regrets sorrows griefs torments tâ—oubles rage languors fury death and punishments of millions of men affronted and injured by the malicious industry of women whom they adored and honored as the Soveraign Lady 's of their affections I shall omit that
degenerous Labour of Hercules in his service of Omphale where he submitted his invincible spirit and conquering hands to the sweeping of her Chambers and Halls and afterwards his dying enraged and mad by the poison and jealousie of Dejanira And also Apollo who kept sheep to please the daughter of Admetus together with Hippolitus who was torn in pieces by the means of his incestuous mother in Law Absyrthes who was also dismembred by his cruel sister Medaea Roland that French Hercules who languished to death through the inconstancy of the lewd daughter of Galafrina and dyed sacrificing himself to her King Ipsis who died for Anaxarete Hemon for Antigone Ovid for Corynna with many others Who had no other satisfaction for this excess and profuseness of life than to see in the other world these execrable women punished according to their demerits becoming the pastime of the Furies in their infernal Vaults To omit the stories with other prophane writings of Adam Samson David Solomon and the most accomplish'd of the Antients the most generous and brave courages that have been ruined by the female sex I resume my subject and will prove that whole Kingdoms Provinces and Common-wealths have fallen by misfortunes occasioned by some particular women Helena once the Paragon of all humane beauty fomented so bloody a war by the excellent features of her face between the Greeks and the Trojans that the last lost both their life and honor therein She afterwards remembring her self of this fatal business repented it sincerely for being advanced in age as is reported by James Bergonne in his Supplement of the Chronicles and desirous to see her face she called for a Looking-glass and beholding her face so withered and all the beauties thereof so tarnished she fell a laughing and in that mood blamed the folly of those who for her sake had endured so many troubles Alas quoth she is it possible that such acountenance should cause the ruine of so many brave Cities and the slaughter of so many thousand gallant men and noble warriors These were the dying words of that most excellent Beauty King Joram after the death of his father Jehosaphat succeeding in the Kingdom his brothers being killed and himself fallen into Idolatry and the ruine both of him and his Kingdom thereupon ensuing the Scripture gives this account thereof and imputes it wholly to his unhappy wife Filia quippe Achab uxor ejus fecit malum in conspectu Domini He had Athaliah the daughter of Ahab and Jezabel to his wife importing that it was no marvel this Prince was so wicked and guilty of so great crimes having so wicked a wife for his companion And in the Third of the Kings the same Scripture searching the cause of the miseries and abhominations of Ahab saith after this manner Jezable his wife c. Concitavit enim eum Jezabel uxor sua abhominabilis factus est in tantum ut sequeretur idola quae fecerunt Amorhaei Philo Judaeus notes in the first Book of the life of Moses that Balak King in Asia whose power extended it self throughout the greatest part of the East never durst enterprise upon the Israelites till he had consulted his Devines and particularly had sent for Balaam that false Prophet who though constrained by the Spirit of God to speak truth nevertheless not to lose the savour of that Prince he advised him that the onely way to effect his designes and ruine that people was by sending his women among them whom he should adorn and dress as lasciviously as could be Which purpose the said women effectually brought about by their allurements so that the greatest part of the youth subjected themselves to Idolatry before they were or might be permitted to fulfil their lusts on them which so animated Phineas with the zeal of God's glory and the love of Continence and some other with him that falling upon these abominable persons they killed of them to the number of four and twenty thousand and so saving the Host from being contaminated with those filthinesses they gained the victory over that King who by the counsel of the foresaid Prophet had so in the gross corrupted the people I shall onely add the example of Cleopatra who as Plutarch saith was that rock on which Mark Anthony that valiant and great Captain dash'd and broke himself in pieces by his impure pleasures But she not onely ruined him but was the cause of a thousand troubles to the State of Rome Marcus Aurelius that wise Prince saith That the fire of Aetna was not so hurtful to Sicily as this wicked woman to every Canton of that Empire To conclude As vertuous women are given us from Heaven to alleviate the miseries of our nature so are the bad born expresly to vex men and to oppose and ruine all their desines and good fortune Now although so many thousand imperfections combine in them yet more particularly Pride reigneth and rageth in them which in explication of this next Epithet in in our Alphabetical order shall be seen S Silva Superbiae Forrest of Pride PRide is a vice so detestable and pernicious that it hath made of an Angel a Devil Lucifer of a Man a Beast Nebuchadnezzar of Adam the subject and object of all those miseries which encompass and thwart us If you would fee the description the Divines hold That it is properly a disorderly appetite of its own excellence or of its self which causeth contempt of God and of those whom he hath made superior in Grace Honor and other prerogatives All the learned hold it for the chief of the other vices and say That it is she which combats and assaults all the other vertues St. Austin said That she is the Comrade of all sins the guide and director in all their deformities the reason is because she is often generated by a love of justice and of vertue and proceeds in the way of good works whereas other vices are cherished by bad actions and are known by their works This abhominable vice is as a pestilential wind which blowing under the tree of vertue withers the beauty of a soul as a Poet hath express'd it Pride is the root and head of every vice The source and fountain of what ills befall us Who hath this monster tam'd may freely say That he hath shook the mighty Tower of sin By pride the devil full of cunning spight From Paradise our first Parents banished Subjected m to labour griefs and pain The gulph and precipice of misery If then thou'dst breaks through sins Battalia Rout those Philistines set thy courage to 't Cut off thy vaunting proud Goliah's head For the whole Army seeing him to bleed And his head rear'd the Trophee of the field Will quail and their subdued powers yield As we see in war that no sooner as the General is fallen in Battel but the adverse soldiers rush forward without looking behind them so he that can triumph over pride and can drive it from its