at ten years of age and was but 15 when she hid the spies as some report Leo saith that in Africk one shall scarce finde a Maid at 14 years of age for when the vehemency of Adolescency which is betwixt the age of 14 and 28 beginneth to tickle them and when they have greatest need of a bridle then they let loose the raines committing themselves to the subjection of this passion There are many forward Virgins of our age are of opinion that this commodity can never be taken up too soon and howsoever they neglect in other things they are sure to catch time by the forelock in this if you aske them this question they will resolve you 14 is the best time of their age if 13 be not better then that and they have for the most part their Mothers example before them to confirme and prove their ability and this withall they hold for a certain ground that be they never so little they are sure thereby to become no lesse yet let me tell these forward Girles the effects that most commonly ensue are dangerous births diminution of statute brevity of life and such like This passion is more tolerable in youth and such as are in their hot bloud and shall I be bold to speak it without offence to the stale Batchelors that Love is not properly nor naturally in season but in that age next unto infancy Nunc grata juveni Venus Venus to young men is a welcome guest But for an amorous complexion to cover glowing fires beneath the embers of a gray-beard to see an old man to dote upon Women what more odious what more absurd yet in some this Idalian fire flameth more in their old age then in their youth Aristotle saith that old men are not out of the reach of Cupid nor bid defiance to Venus till they have passed the age of 70 years And truly a gray-head and a wanton-heart are ill suited it is more ridiculous to see it in Women then men It rageth in all ages yet is it most common and evident among young and lusty persons in the flower of their age high fed and living idly for such as are continually imployed it scarce touches them till they come to be 24 or 25 years of age and then but very lightly according to the speech of Lyndamor to Pallemas that he had arrived to the age of 25 years before he ever felt any effects as Love useth to produce in hearts of his age Not but that he was of his naturall inclination as much devoted servant unto Ladies but being continually exercised in businesse much different from idlenesse he had no pleasure to let Love sow any seeds in his soul for ever since he was able to bear armes moved by a generous instinct which invites noble spirits unto dangerous enterprizes he was perpetually in wars where he did most heroically signalize himself Some have given two reasons why youth is more subject to this illimited passion then any other age The first is That naturall heat or vigour which is most predominant in youth provoking him to attempt the greatest of difficulties rather then suffer the repulse where he affects The second is Want of imployment which begets this distemperature Vacuo pectore regnat amor Love playes hai-day in an idle person Amor otiosae cura est solicitudinis saith Theophrastus it is an affection of an idle minde Also it fosters it self by a writ of Priviledge in the hearts of young men who abounding with much bloud and consequently with great store of Vitall spirits are more fiery and ardent making them full of wanton and youthfull desires I have many times observed a great sympathy and affection young boyes and girles have one to another and indeed there is a pretty pleasing kind of wooing drawn from a conceived but concealed fancy which suits well with these amorous younglings they could wish with their hearts ever to be in the presence of those they love so they might not be seen by them Might they chuse they would converse with them freely consort with them friendly and impart their truest thoughts fully yet would they not have their bashful loves finde discovery They would be seen yet seem obscured Love but not disclose it see whom they love but not be eyed Yea which hath struck me into more admiration I have known divers whose unripe years half assured me that their green youth had never instructed them in the knowledge nor brought them to conceit of such vanities excellently well read in Love Lectures and prompt enough to shew proofes of their reading in publick places The amorous toyes of Venus and Adonis with other Poems of like nature they peruse with such devotion and retain with such delectation as no subject can equally relish their unseasoned palats like those lighter discourses If this passion begin in infancy and so continue it is more affectionate and strong because that custom which is taken in that age doth by degrees become a nature which growing up with years growes solid and unalterable Fronutus saith of Love Juvenis pingitur quod amore plerumque Juvenes capiuntur sic mollis formosus nudus quod simplex apertus hic affectus ridet quod oblectamentum prae ase ferat cum phiretra c. The reason why Love was painted young is because young men are most apt to Love soft fair and fat because such folks are soon captivated naked because all true affection is simple and open he smiles because merry and given to delights hath a Quiver to shew his power and none can escape him old nor young is blinde because he sees not where he shootes nor whom he hits c. Let us now Demonstrate what temperatures and complexions do sympathize together and are most prone and apt to receive the impression of this Passion THe diversitie of complexions breeds a diversity of desires whereby they judge diversly of things present and follow those which do best agree with their constitutions whereby we see that in the election of any thing whatsoever the appetite doth accommodate it self to the temperature of the body for we see Men fit themselves in their customs and carriages to their corporeal temperature ever desiring to converse with their like for Nature would so have it to this only end that every one should be esteemed and be loved and they that are not absolutely faire in every part should not be despised but being received into grace and favour with their Lovers might live honestly in mutuall society and in good esteem with them Every like desireth and loveth his like whereby ever for the publick good there remaineth nothing despised because there is nothing but hath its like And therefore to the eyes of a Moor the black or tawny countenance of his Moorish Damosel pleaseth best and yet such a one would almost turn the stomach of a Sanguine complexioned English man to look upon Now to discover those who are
observing on whom she looks and who looks on her Argus did not so keep his Cow the watchfull Dragon the golden Fleece or Cerberus Hell gates as he does her toyling and wasting away himself in pursuite of so concealed a mystery and so obscure a verification If he see her discourse familiarly with another if by nod winke smile or message he think she discloseth her self to another he is instantly tormented none so dejected as he is he thinks himself utterly undone a cast away the scorne of fortune There are some though their hearts be violently assaulted with jealousie and false suspicion insomuch that they can never rest in quiet make shew outwardly of a happy life and a carelesse neglect of their best beloved yet in despite of themselves and their best endevours they cannot dissemble it It is the natural course of this passion for it is with those who are in the highest pitch of Love as those who are on the tops of great elevations their heads grow dizie and though no body touch them they reel till they fall of themselves meerly by the fear of falling And this is the passion that ruines Loves reputation and disorders the souls tranquillity Therefore If Lovers needs must jealous be And from this venom ne'r be free Then fie upon 't my prayer shall be From Love good Jove deliver me Now as touching Women they have the symptomes of this passion more vehemently their wils being stronger then their reason there is no counsell to be given them against this evill of jealousie their nature being wholly suspicion vanity and curiosity If you seek to perswade them they will flie out against you like so many Lyonesses objecting How can they moderate their passions how can they but be jealous when they see themselves manifestly neglected contemned loathed unkindly used and their unkind Lovers court Ladies to their faces There is a tree in Mexicana which is so exceedingly tender that a Man cannot touch any of its branches but it withers presently so Women are so subject to this passion that like tinder they will take fire at the least sparke of suspicion and a small touch will wound and kill their love This passion is most predominant in old Men as saith the Author of the Accomplisht Woman which very properly be compared to Ivy because that grows ordinarily upon old heapes or ruines so this passion wreathes it self most commonly about old tortured and dejected spirits such as marry young wenches and how can they be otherwise all things considered We see Ivy flourishing upon dry withered and saplesse trees so in old Men this passion is very potent and youthfull and becomes the stronger in such as age or crazinesse of wit infeebles or stupefies It is no great miracle if jealous ones be lean their passions feeding on nothing but faintnesse and nothing like melancholy to entertain jealousie Therefore I exhort Gentlewomen not to bestow themselves upon fools or apparent melancholy persons jealousie being a symptome of that disease and fools have no moderation It is an enemy with poysoned weapons and his approach is enough to overthrow when the memory hath once received it reason often comes too late for a resistance I hope I shall not be thought a vagrant from my subject if I tell marryed couples that suspicion of it self is able to make one flie out that was otherwise honest If we consider that jealousie and Cuckolds differ no otherwise then a City Sheriffe and Alderman a little time makes the one the other for it is as common as the Moon gives hornes twice a moneth to the world for a jealous Man to wear Actaeons badge the Miller sees not all the water that goes by his Mill sometimes Sweet-heart and Cuckold are reciprocal termes many a good Gentleman hath worn a plume of Buls feathers in his crest being set in by his arrant honest Mistresse There was a Roman named Cydippus who took so great a delight to see Buls baited that it set such an impression in his Idea as he thought so much of it over night that he arose in the morning with a horned head This spectacle pleased him for that he had entertained his fancy with it and in the end his imagination did him this ill office There is no malice sufficiently black to blind this passions capacity it gives subtlety and craft to the dullest and perverts the most vertuous to seek satisfaction for the injury if has no bound to inventions it brings ruine to its fosterer as it did to Procris jealous of her husband Cephalus she imagined he had a Mistresse besides her self which she thought he went to seek in the woods under pretence of hunting she hid her self behind a bush thinking to hear the discourse of his solitary thought he hearing a stir and a noise in the thicket and believing it was a Deer shot an arrow at it and struck her to the heart she dying cryed Cephalus which word made him know he had taken his Wife for a beast and I think he was not very much mistaken Also Mr. Brathwaith in his English Gentlewoman records a matchlesse president of Jealousie acted in England with the like tragicall conclusion He hath it in these words IT sometimes pleased a young Gentlewoman whose fortunes had swelled her high to settle her affections on a Gentleman of deserving parts which he entertained with a generous requitall nothing was omitted that might any way increase their respect or second the height of their joyes Continuall resort and frequent made them inseparably one no day so pleasing as when they were together no hour so tedious as when they were asunder But short is that moment of fading happinesse which hath in it a relish of lightnesse and is not grounded on essentiall goodnesse Long had they not thus lived and sociably loved but the Gentlewoman conceived some private suspicion that her self was not the sole soveraignesse of his heart but that another was become sharer in his Love Neither was this Competitrice whom she suspected any other then her own attendant whose Casket she secretly opened where she found a Ring of especiall note which she had formerly bestowed on him This confirmed her conceit changed her reall love into mortall hate which she seconded with this Tragick act Inviting him one day into a Summer Arbour where in former times they were wont to repose amidst of an amorous discourse she casually fixt her eye upon three Lennets one whereof picking some Privet leaves purposely to build her nest flew away whilest the two which remained lovingly billed one with another which she intentively observing used these words How tenderly and intimately do these poor fools mate it were it not pity they should be ever divided Which words she had no sooner uttered then the she Lennet flew away and left the male alone till another returned with whom the he Lennet billed and amorously wooed as he had done before which she more seriously eyeing O quoth she
your corroding sore made by loves wounding weapon that excellent remedy that soveraign balme that universal medicine which if seasonably administred will give you comfort when you are most distempered The Recipe is Divine Contemplation for certainly those spirits which are truly raised to the study and knowledge of divine things and do well know the art of celestiall contemplation are elevated above all terrestrial pleasures in as much as eternity is above time and infinite felicities above vanities And not finding any thing on earth worthy our desire and to fix our affections upon let the object of our love and felicities be in the Empyreall heaven And while we are in these divine extasies let our spirits be so strong as they may be conquerors of our bodies so heavenly that they may esteem the chiefest pleasures of the body as this of heroick love but as dung and drosse nay worse if worse may be in comparison of those sublime and celestial pleasures we enjoy in our souls And in such comparison we may rejoyce more in contemning these corporeal delights and being above them then in the fruition of them Therefore in stead of placing our affections on terrene objects let us seek after that fountain and well-spring of all love lovelinesse beauty sweetnesse and excellencies of the Creator which is infinitely more permanent and doth as much transcend all other beauties and excellencies in the world if they were all united in one so that when a soul is possessed with the beauty and love of God it will have the eye of its imagination fixed on him often soaring and mounting up to heaven as its center on the wings of contemplation and a sa vapor exhaled by the Sun often gliding after its love being thereunto attracted by the allurements of his most amiable fair and divine lustre and lovelinesse insomuch as it will be enlightened with glorious Ideas touring apprehensions ardent affections and celestial raptures We will conclude with that Poetical and Divine strain of the Nightingale of France If wanton Lovers so delight to gaze On mortall beauties brittle little blaze That not content with almost dayly sight Of those deer Idols of their appetite Nor with th' Ideas which the Idalian Dart Hath deep imprinted in their yielding heart Much more should those whose souls in sacred love Are rapt with Beauties proto-type above FINIS The Postscript READER I Know I shall come under the lash of a Satyrical dijudication and be boy'd out of countenance for presuming to appear in this Subject which would have become the neat flourishes of a more elegant pen Therefore I will acknowledge that Philomus as one of my most energetical palizadoes who will defend this Enchiridion against the malevolous aspersions of the venemous tongues of detractors that will endevour to derogate its worth by calumny But I have Herculean hopes that some will vindicate me where I cannot answer for my self against the viperous brood of backbiters And as I love not to come within the jawes of such black-mouth'd Plutonian Curs so I desire not to be bandied up and down in the Tennis Court of this World with the Racket of praise for there is a Herb called Lingua pagana I translate it a double tongue the Devill that crafty Gardner hath got a slip of it and hath set it in the heart of the Gâ—athonical Reader for Bilinguis was none of Gods making no it was of the Devils marring he loves to make that double which God made single So there will be some Cloven tongues that will disallow of that in the Writers absence which before did approve of and commend in his presence and if such distastful Criticks shall misinterpret the innocency of my harmlesse meaning I shall but reply and play with their sporting Censures as doth Ben. Johnson in his Play works Their praise or dispraise is to me alike Th' one doth not stroke me nor the other strike I will conclude with one word to Momus who like a cowardly Cur will fawn in a Mans face but bite him by the heels when his turn'd back hath given the farewell or like the Cholerick Horse-rider who being cast from a young Colt not daring to kill the Horse cut the Saddle Think Momus speak do what thou wilt th' art free Thy thoughts thy words thy deeds are nought to me FINIS The Contents Of Love the Original the Universality and the Definition of it pag. 1. THe whole Vniverse tendeth to love and that it was love which caused God to create the World pag. 1. Mans inclination to a seeming good and the cause of Womans creation 2. The sympathy that Minerals and Vegetables have one to another 3. The Definition of amorous love and the several opinions of Theophrastus Montagne Socrates Tully Seneca and others pag. 4 5. The policy of Paris in the disposal of the golden ball to Venus 5. The power of the Planet Venus pag. 6. The Concord betwixt Pallas the Muses and Venus ibid. The Conclusion 7. The Causes of Love pag. 7. THe first cause from God ibid. The second from the influence of the Stars 8 9. Parents and Education 9 10. The example of Themistocles 10. Idlenesse ibid. Luscious fair ibid. Dancing Schooles and Schooles of Musick 11. Quintilians opinion of Nurses ibid. The example of Socrates 12. A Harmony and Consonancy of spirits c. 13. That beauty and goodnesse make us love 14. The great power that beauty hath in procuring Love 16. The particulars of beauty causing Love 1. The Eyes 17. 2. Fair hair 18. 3. The Tongue a gracious Laughter Songs Kissing c. 19. 4. A tall slender body c. ibid. 5. Breasts and paps affected carriages garments guises colons jewels pendants painting c. 19. Apparel 20. 6. Pleasant looks glances c. 21. Good instruction to Ladies 21. 7. A tender and hot heart ibid. 8. Love-letters 23. 9. Words ibid. 10. Eare ibid. Lysidas love to Astrea ibid. Money causing Love in Men 23. Money causing Love in Women 25. What the Poets say are the causes of Love 26. Fonsecas opinion of the cause of Love 27. The Conclusion 29. Of the Power and Effects of Love 31. WHat Plato cals Love ibid. The effects of love in Animals 31 32. Diseases caused by Love 32. Powers and assaults of Love 33. The variousnesse of it ibid. Divers examples of the Effects of Love 35. The many dangers and hazzards Lovers undergoe 37. Loves force is shown in the continuation of a designe 39. The effects of love in Birds c. 40. The effects of love in old persons 41. In Maids ibid. Constancy in Lovers inconstancy 43. How Lovers display the beauty of their Mistresses 43. The effects of love in She-lovers with their ear-charming notes 44. A loves simplician described 47. A description a great many Guls 48. Instructions to Lovers 48 49. Love strengthened by hope c. 51. A description of the Palace of Love 57. The effects of love in Women 53 54 55 56 57. The conclusion 58. Of the Power and Effects of Love in Widows 59 WIdows compared to Heralds Hearse-clothes and how they will belie their age c. ibid. The artificial discourse of Widows ibid. Widow Courters c. 61. The cause why Spaniards will not mary Widows 61. Widows were ordained for younger brothers 62. The Signes of Love 63. CAutions before you judges of signes ibid. What Physognomie is ibid. Various signes of Love are from pag. 64. to 69. Signes of Love in Women 75 76 77. Signes of Love by Chiromancy 77. Signes of Love by Dreams 77 78. Signes of Love by Astrology 79 80. At what Age we begin to be in Love What Complexions do best sympathize What c. 81. WHen it beginneth in men 81 82. When in Women ibid. 83 84 85. What temperatures and complexions do sympathize together and are most prone to receive the impression of this passion 86 87 88 89 90. In what principal part of the Body of Man is the seat of Love 91. WHere Love first entreth 91 92. Of Jealousie in Lovers 93. THe Definition of it 93 94. The Effects Signes and symptomes of it 94. 95 96 97 98 99. How it may be known who will be subject to jealousie by every mans Nativity 101. The Remedies of Love 102. HOw to take away Love caused by the stars 102 103. How to remove it caused by Parents and Education 103 104 105 106. How to extinguish it caused by beauty 106 107. That Love is sooner extinguished in presence then absence 109. How to take away the cause of Money causing Love 113 114. A preservative and soveraign receipt for Women to fortifie themselves against the contagion of this pussion 115 116 117 118 119. How to extinguish Love according to the way of the Arabians 119. And the Parthians 120 121. Several other instructions to divert the patients thoughts 120. Physical cures by letting of bloud change and variety of places and what air is best How to diet him as what simples to use in his broaths What Syrups and Conserves he must take What fruit he may eat c. What Sauces to use with his meats 122 123 124. What the patient must abstain from 124. His Exercise 125. Fortifie the haart ibid. The remedy of Theban Crates ibid. The Conclusion 126 127. FINIS * And that is the cause why women love fish better then flesh for they will have Plaice what ever they pay for it