in these dayes of more light or rather more light dayes to lay down themselves with their hole stubstance and now there is no great fear that they will Apostatize from their first principles although nature may be so prevailing in them that they may Fall back a little Terp You will never leave your Drolling Mimologue 't is strange you should affect this scurrilous sarcastical way Mim Come Come Terpole for all you look so demurely and speak so precisely as if you were such a Saint Yea though you turn up the white of your Eyes and make such a shew yet if my skil do'nt fail me in Physiognomy you look as if you would turn up somthing else too provided it be done in due time and place and so no scandal to the strait-laced Sisters Come you see I know you a little you are Pisello di buona cucina as the Italian Idiom is you are loose in the Hilts I 'le warrant you and now I hope I touch you to the quick I do the rather use this Gibing way which you charge upon me as a fault it seems because I would fain laugh you out of that silly rambling humour of yours that when you have a good Orthodox Preacher in your own Parish you should leave him and go a Pilgrimage two or three Miles it may be to bear such pitiful nonsensical men keep a babling who beat upon the Cushion more than their Text and make the Pulpit groan more than their Hearers whom you of the Sisterhood admire because he delivers all he saith by heart Oh say they a rare man he never looks upon a Book and indeed 't is no marvel for 't was a thing he never was used to I 'le hold you a good wager Terpole that I 'le make a better Sermon that never preached in my life than any of those sonorous Pulpit-Thumpers you use to hear and so work upon the Sisters by my Doctrine and overcome them so that they will be more ready than in times of yore when the old lusty puss was started the good old Cause I mean to bring in their Bodkins Thimbles and Marriage-Rings and all that they have and lay them down and themselves holy at my Devotion Terp Here is multum clamoris sed parum lanae as they say great boast but little roast I 'le warrant you Mim Well come and try and bring some of the Sisters with you and I 'le exercise them to purpose Terp By my truly I could find in my Heart to come if you be in earnest Mim Do'nt doubt that for I am serious but remember then to come Die veneris which is to morrow at Nine of the Clock in the Morning for I am best at morning exercise to Grubstreet at the Signe of the Naked Woman because that is a very convenient Conventicling place and I 'le be sure to keep touch with you in the mean time I 'le bid you farwell Terp I can hold up no longer now 't is so late 't is twelve a Clock for this Night I verily believe therefore I must go sleep Mim Good Night to you Terpole I 'le leave you to your rest Terp I wish you a good Nights rest Mimologue but remember your promise of exercising to morrow Mim I 'le warrant you do'nt fear it but I will be punctual Corina Good morrow Sir are you Mr. Morologue Mim I am no more a Logg than your self my Name is Mimologue Cor. Pardon the mistake of your Name Sir you are the person intended Mim Well! Go on what is your business with me Cor. My Mistriss Madam Terpole sent me to know whether you were come and were ready to exercise here as you promised she being at the next door at the Sign of the Green-Gown Mim Let her know I have been here this half Hour and come as well provided as I could in so short a time Cor. I shall readily perform your commands your servant Sir Mim Farewell sweet Heart Mim Hoh Good morrow Terpole you are come I see with the Brethren and Sisters you have brought to hear me Well I am none of the best gifted but I 'le perform as well as I can I pray walk into the next Room because that is most convenient for the purpose So 't is well now the company is come together I 'le begin My Beloved prick up your ears and hearken with all diligence as you shall find it Written for your instruction in the Second Book of Pseudology Cap. 3. v. 30. in these words Oh that men were wise and would consider what pleasure and profit there is in Lying and they would never speak Truth again Now beloved if you would find me hereafter never look for me in the Text for it may be I may never come at it again No more than those Rambling Pulpiteers you hear who are as far off from the Text as that unskilful Archer was from the mark whom when Diogenes saw ready to shoot he presently ran to the place where the Arrow was to be directed alledging this reason for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I might not be hit Well my Beloved the Text you have heard from which words I shall gather this plain lamping observation which flowes naturally from the Words viz that Lying is a very pleasant edifying and universally profitable thing all over the Christian World Now I shall speak to these words first by way of Explication Secondly by way of Application shutting up all with a word of Exhortation Lying Beloved is a word of great Latitude and extent As to its Pedigree I must tell you 't is of great Antiquity it comes of a very ancient Family the first Temptation that ever was it was a Lye But that you may know what Lying is you are to take notice that the credit of the Relator is that which makes the difference between Lying and speaking of Truth for a Lye believed is Truth and Truth not believed is a Lye and here I 'le illustrate this with a short story that concerns a Conventicling Brother who exercised upon the Butchers Wife very ardently she admiring him as many of the other Sisters did for his profound knowledge in revealing of mysteries and secrets or rather Mistress secrets you may perhaps guess whom I mean but I 'le do him that right not to name him because he is dead and gone and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a precept But the story is thus there was a plain farming Fellow in the Country that lived near the said Brother of the Congregational way that had a youth to his Son who though a Minor in Years yet was arived to a great maturity in all debauchery and notwithstanding the repeated admonitions of his Father he continued in his wicked Courses insomuch that his Father despairing that he could ever work upon him so as to reclaim him desired the said Teacher that he would exercise his Jurisdiction over him he being a person of such Authority among the Brotherhood and
indeed can refrain from laughter to hear such poor Jejune flat and impertinent expressions Tautologies a Myriad with a Company of wyer drawn Metaphors and holy Knick-knacks and conceits extemporary effusions sanctifyed non-sense and ridiculous Fopperies which flow from such Pulpiteers Mouths as insensibly and easily as excrements from some sick persons I profess for my part I think it is time mispent to hear such and that one had better be imployed in picking of straws or as the Emperour Domitian in catching of Flyes by an Hour Glass who was truly therefore styled an Enemy to Flies and a Fly to his Enemies then to sit two or three Hours to hear such pitiful Nonsensical and sometimes blasphemous stuffe But as to the second part of my charge I do agree that word you use might be more proper of Holding forth for the Sisterhood don't love obscure mysterious things that need unfolding but are for down-right Truths plainly laid open for Truth and Women are much alike Truth is best Naked and so are Women they are most ready when they are unready therefore some Lywers will not admit of the word Notwithstanding in a Joynture but instead thereof put in alvvayes provided Nakedness is that which restores Women to themselves for the various dressings of all Nations do strangely disguise them so that they must put off their Masquin Habits or be taken to pieces like Watches e're they can be enjoyed Now we cannot do Women greater right than to be Judged by one Rule then do but once uncloth Women and they are all the same Comines tells us that a Princess being upon the point of Marriage appeared in a Lawn Smock to be viewed by Ambassadors and said she would put off that too if requisite Thus you see Nakedness is a sure Rule for the preventing of mistakes for every Woman out of her Cloathes is of the same fashion but this will not be believed by Gallants but they will Coast about the Microcosme of Women and so insatiate they are in their desires that they would willingly try all omnem movebunt lapidem they will leave no stone unturned at Whetstones-Park until they touch upon the new found Island as they fancy when as indeed it is as commonly known as the Isle of Man and hath no relation at all to Terra incognita but the frequent speculation of an Idea stimulates Men to the enjoyment of a thing which when enjoyed they find to consist more in imagination than reality like the Incubus or Night-Mare in a Dream you imagine it a VVeight you Grasp at it and awake and 't is nothing Pleasure in this kind is a Juno in the pursuit and but a Cloud in the Enjoyment It is but a meer Dream or shadow of a Dream rather In Aegypt there was a young man that had a marvellous fancy unto a famous Courtisan called Thonis who did ask him such a great summ of Money to lye with her that it was impossible for him to give it at length this Youth being so deep in love with her dreamt one Night he lay with her and enjoyed her This Courtisan whom he had taken such a fancy to hearing of this his Dream did put him in suit before the Judges to be paid her Hire for the pleasure the young man had taken of her by imagination Bocchoris hearing the summ of her complaint commanded the young man to bring before him in some Vessel at a certain day appointed as much money as she did ask him for to lye with her then he bad him toss it to and fro in his Hand before the Courtisan that she might have the shadow and sight of it for quoth he imagination and opinion is but a shadow of Truth But still supposing this young man had really his desires fulfilled yet he would have found they had been more in imagination than in Truth for Opinion is the Shop of pleasures where they are at first forged and receive their birth and as they are generated of an Airy Phantosme so they dye in a fume and disperse into nothing But hold I fear I shall run out too far upon this point and be guilty of a digression therefore I must look a little back and recollect my self You may remember I told you the Sisters are for Down-right Truths plainly laid open and you know Women are counted best on the sudden and therefore do'nt love a person that is long before he comes to duty like those dissenting Brethren of the Conventicling perswasion who are wont to usher in a trite common notion with an huge August Preface Just so a Brother of the same opinion did lately who teaching the Brotherhood and Sisterhood spake thus It was well said of as great a Divine as ever Europe brought forth Nay if you will believe Gregory Nazianzen and he was a man of a celebrated fame for all abstruse Learning it was not only well said but it was very well said that Faith is good if it be a good Faith But I remember how much this tedious Fumbler was disrelished by the Holy Sisters for they like those best that come to the point quickly the Vertical point I mean which by a Trope or Stylo Novo may be called Turn-Style because there are more ways to the wood than one but whether you go this way or that way still 't is the same thing to wit a thing of nothing for take the whole and yet you have not enough nor they I warrant you for Women Priests and Poultry never have enough as is commonly said and although it is a vulgar saying that Virtus consistit in medio it is not so in this middle though it be the best part of the Female Sex according to the French Adage Des femmes des poissons le milieu vaut le mieux i. e. Of Women and Fish the middle is best Terp I cannot pass by some things you say in defense of your self without a severe Castigation you call those precious Soul-piercing yea Soul-saving heart-breaking sin-destroying faith-confirming Truths poor flat jejune impertinent seditious and blasphemous things this verily is a gross Error in you For they that Hold-forth to us are men of such courage and zeal that when we are e'ne sunk in our spirits for want of meet helps they keep us from despair nay they are Boanerges's sons of Thunder Mim I grant they are Sons of Thunder in some sense but instead of Soul-saving Truths as you call them that you pretend they should deliver they thunder out Soul-destroying State-disturbing King-reviling Doctrine and are so powerful in their Holding Forth this And something else that I could tell you of if I were minded that the Sisters cannot but fall before them as Lightning they being Women of extraordinary humility and lowliness having heretofore in the days of Usurpation and in times of darkness petitioned the ablest Members that they would be pleased to Stand unto them shewing a great readiness at all times especially
Sisterhood thought it seems that his Reproof might take such impression upon his Son so as to reform him and to be short the said Teacher meeting with him one day did severely castigate him in this manner Oh! Sirrah saith he I hear fine things of you you are a notorious Rogue you have got a trick I hear that when your Father sends you to keep his Sheep to play at Cards and loose I know not how many of them at One and Thirty that is a Lye saith the Boy presently How now saith this Teacher you are a rude Rogue indeed do you give me the Lye why quoth the Boy 't is true enough that you did tell a Lye why how is that Boy saith he Marry thus when I was One and Thirty I alwayes wonn yea that is true indeed Boy saith the Teacher But Sirrah I hear of another Roguish trick you have and that is you are wont when your Father is angry with you for your evil practises to drive his Sheep over a narrow Bridge and so they fall beside and are lost that is another Lye saith the Boy why Boy quoth the Teacher how is that thus 't is replyes the Boy those Sheep that go over the Bridge are safe enough but they are only lost that fall beside the Bridge so this Brother was convinced that the Boy spoke Truth in both these things he charged him with as great misdemeanours but notwithstanding it fell out to be true as the Boy said he was given enough to Lying and so are many beside him that are men who have so used themselves to Lying that they will Lye as fast as a Dog will lick a Dish now the reward of such persons is never to be credited although they chance to speak Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a good Author saith but of all persons that are addicted to Lying none have so good a warrant for their Lying as Travellers for they may Lye by Authority when I Was at Amsterdam in Holland the Description of an Ambassador that obtained very much there was Legatus est vir bonus peregrè missus ad mentiendum Reipub. causâ but if others do'nt Lye and the News be true that we hear Ambassadors there are never likely to Lye more for such a purpose for their Common-wealth or Stateship is e'ne defunct it being a thing so odious to the people that though their be great Discords among them yet in this they agree all and cry out with one accord The Devil take the States But if Ambassadors are so much given to Lying as you heard before what then are other ordinary Travellers It is so Authentick with some of them that they will take it for an high affront if you do but so much as question the Truth of any story they relate though it be never so improbable and indeed they have told Lyes so often that they at length themselves believe them to be true and are ready to Duel any that seem in the least to contradict them Yea though there be an evident impossibility in the stories they relate as there is in that of the Bishop of Mentze's who bragged that he had a flame of the Bush which Moses beheld burning And that likewise of the Holy Relique of the Asse of which the story runs thus A Dutch man making his confession to a Masse Priest at Rome promised by an Oath to keep secret whatsoever the Priest should impart unto him untill he came into Germany whereupon the Priest gave him a Legg of the Asse on which Christ rode into Jerusalem very neatly bound up in a silken cloath and said this is the Holy Relique of that Asse on which the Lord Christ corporally did sit and with his sacred Leggs touched this Asses Leggs Then was the Dutchman very joyful and carried the said holy Relique with him into Germany Now when he in the presence of Four other his Comrades shewed it each of them having likewise received from the same Priest a Legg and had promised the same secresy they breaking out into great admiration said Lord Had that Ass five Leggs From whence it cometh that the Italians do jeer the Dutch-men and hold them for very gross ignorant people Lying in general being nakedly and abstractly considered first implyes rest for by this means we enjoy rest that which all things even to the lowest inanimates tend unto with a strong propension stones themselves violently rush down to their Center and encrease their motion as they come near it those that are used to hunt in Whetstones Park have sufficiently experimented the Truth of this or else they have not been given so much to Lying as the World thinks them Flames and Fire mount upwards being impatient of those Vnctious and sulphurious Prisons to which we confine them all things tend to quiet and rest If a man would obtain sciences in any kind there is no way so conducible as serenity of mind and quietness hence it was that the Poets secluded the Muses to mount Parnassus to Fountains and Groves as knowing that Cities were no fit places for any profound Meditations and consequently much company an Enemy to it For this reason I believe it was that the Learned Sir Henry Wotton after his many Embassayes and negotiations concluded thus tandem hoc didici animas sapientiores fieri quiescendo Secondly Lying as it implies rest as I told you before so it implies health also that is to say in Women for it very much conduces thereunto provided they lye according as the French Proverb hath it la femme est bien malade quand elle ne se peut tenir sur le dos That Woman must needs be sick who cannot lye on her back Thirdly lying implies pleasure and so 't is true as I told you in my Doctrinal observation that it is a pleasant thing for Women especially but this is no otherwise true but as there is lying in the case that is when men lye with them for they take no pleasure at all in lying alone Now though I say lying is a very pleasant thing you are to take notice that I do'nt mean this of a promiscuous Lying for there are some Women that is not lawful for men to lye with them And therefore Mr. Take-o'-Trust a great Casuist of the sisters makes a nice distinction herein and cuts it for an hair A man saith he very argutely may lye with his own Mans Wife but not with another Mans Wife And Dr. Amphibolus another great Casuist saith that it is not lawful or at least wise not expedient for a man to lye at all times with a Woman no not with his own Wife for one may as he phrases it use licita illicitè But beloved for my more methodical proceeding you may be pleased to take notice of a Tripartite Division of lying that is commonly known viz. an officious a Jocose and a pernicious lying Of these in their order briefly But rouze up your selves Brethren for
I see some of you a sleep with your Heads in the sisters laps a foul shame and a great scandal that when I am standing here you should lye there I tell you truly or rather a true lye this ought not to be I pray mind what I told you I said there was a threefold Lying this lying of yours make a Fourth but I know not under what Topick to bring it except it be a lascivious lying but to return to the Text and first there is an officious Lying as I mentioned before And that is when a man lyes with his own Wife but this is a thing not much in use now a dayes and therefore I 'le but lightly touch upon it As for this Vxorious lying it is a thing every husband is bound to do ex officio if he would be counted an honest man Although some are so wise not to tye themselves to duty in this kind Therefore the Italians say Gli huomini da bene si maritano gli savij no. Honest men use to marry but wise men tarry I have heard some Gallants say that a Wife were a fine thing if she were an Almanack that a man might change her once a Year If the age we lived in were so loose how many close students should we have that would turn over such Authors apace if they could have a liberty to turn them off so soon for they are apt to think that variety in such Books as well as in other things doth delight But there is another sort of Officious lying and that is such a Lying that is hurtful to none but is of advantage to some persons or other this many times is profitable and may lawfully be used As for example if a certain General of an Army should see a kind of despondency in his Souldiers and he to hearten them up and encourage them feigns that there are auxsliary forces coming to their succor and by this means puts courage into these Souldiers when they were almost exanimated thorough fear shall not this figment think you be dispensed with that is so useful Plato allowed a lye lawful either to save a Citizen or deceive an Enemy this kind of lying Abraham used with Pharaoh and Abimeleck and his Servants and likewise the Hebrew Midwives in Aegypt which proceeded from a fervent desire in them to promote greatly the good of those persons and therefore allowed by Origen St. Hierom Chrysostome Innocentius the third Cassianus and others Nay this is of such Universal use that there is no living for Trades-men of all sorts without it I believe if man had not fallen they should never have needed to use it but as he is now it is hard for him to live without it No lying no living There are no wares scarce vended without the help of this either at home or abroad they think they can gain no custom without this custom of lying Oh saith one it cost me more when you have bid money for a commodity this is commonly practised in the Exchange scarce any thing is sold there without the exchange of a lye And some of the Women there will be ready to fly in your face and scratch you if you should seem in the least to suspect the truth of what they say but if you should escape their Nails you will be pelted with the Hail-stones of opprobrious words which will fly thick about your Ears although such persons would shew more wit and get more money too if they were more complaisant and used more gentle and sweet Language for chi non ha denari in borsa habbia miel in Bocca as the Italian Proverb is h. e. He that hath not money in his purse must have hony in his Mouth Xiphilinus tells us that Livia the Wife of the Emperour Augustus promised Numerius Attieus five and twenty thousand Crowns if he would swear that he saw Augustus Caesar after his Death ascend into Heaven Now quis potest tot armatis resistere is there any so fool-hardy Nay so sottish as would refuse such an offer meerly upon the scrupulosity of a fiction Many of the Brother-hood make no bones of being head of a faction and will they think you scruple the having their hand in a fiction No I 'le warrant you when it turns to their advantage and profit they can easily swallow it But there is an officious sitting too as well as lying but that is not my business to treat on here you will easily discern that belongs more to an House of Office than my Text and so that would be no cleanly come off for me to make such a digression There is a lying for credit too as well as profit but such an one that tels a lye to save his credit wipes his Nose on his sleeve to save his Napkin but I shall say no more concerning this first head of Officious lying Now to come to the second part which is jocose lying and this is for the making others merry and may be permitted provided we exceed not in the measure or manner of it this may argue one to be a wise man for as the Italian Proverb hath it Del tutto non é savio chi non sa esser pazzo but you must take heed that you be not so merry in jest as to be sad in earnest I mean to loose your Friend for a jest as that Gentleman did who meeting with a Person of Quality his old acquaintance in London that was newly come from beyond Sea where he had been a long time after a congratulation of his safe return spoke to him in this familiar Dialect Dear Rogue where hast thou been all this while who answered Faith I have been travelling up and down and how hast thou lived by my Wits saith the Traveller whereupon this Jester replyed Faith I never knew one live upon so little in all my life but this was so biting a joculary conceit and did so distast this Traveller that he never cared for his Friend afterward it may be said of such a jocofe man that he hath a good Wit if a wise man had the keeping of it No ay peor burla que la verdadera as the Spaniard saith the worst jest is the true jest as that was of Faustus the Son of Sylla who when his Sister had two Gallants at the same time that had familiarity with her namely Fulvius a Fullers Son and Pompey surnamed Macula scoffingly said Miror sororem meam habere Maculam cum habeat fullonem But the third sort of lying according to the threefold Division that I made remains yet to be spoken to I having dispatched the other two viZ. an officious and a Jocofe Lye Now the last is a pernicious lying and this is twofold one is when a man lyes and hath neither pleasure or profit by his lying the second is when one indeed hath pleasure at first but dolour afterwards As for the first sort of lying it is an unaccountable thing in
such a person that so lyes and deserves to be severely censured In the time of the Emperour Claudius there dyed a Man in Rome named Pamphylus who never told any matter of Truth in all his life time but evermore had his chiefest delight in lying And I heard a story not long ago at a Coffee-House which you know is the Mart of News of a Country-man of our own that was so given to lying but that was a bed although he could lie in other places too that to break himself of that slothful humour was resolved to do pennance in one sheet and therefore very handsomely as he thought pulled off one of the sheets of the Bed where he lay as a Guest and wrapt himself up in it as if it had been a winding sheet But being found out and laughed at for his labour he turned Cat in pan as they say and transferred the contrivance upon the Mistriss of the House saying it was done by her on purpose to affront him and that he would never lie there again Now this you will say was double lying although he lay but in one sheet But however no one single person believed his tale no more than he himself did but no more of this now because the person that acted this foolish trick may be dead for all as I know For I hear that presently after this mad Prank was played he finding his Spirits exhaled with the heat of his passion took a Voyage to Anticyra to purge his Brain-sick phrensy with Helle-bore now whether he died there may be a question much controverted for I never heard he returned from thence but I 'le not undertake to resolve this point but leave it as a Quaere for those fly-witted persons to decide that have nothing else to do but to study the Anatomy of Flies or such like minute things of no moment But secondly as I told you before the other sort of pernicious lying is when one indeed hath pleasure at first in Lying but dolour afterward Now this is such a Lying that is hurtful and destructive to both parties and is a mortal offence for many times it causes mortality For example sake when a man lies in the torrid zone of a Lays or some prostituted She-bed-fellow and gets such an beat or clap that he can never claw it off again Such an one may take up the same complaint that Hermione in Plutarck doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This kind of Lying is very destructive to ones health You have it well exprest in the Italian Proverb quelle che hâ un piè in Bordello hà l'altro nello spedale He who hath the one foot in a Bawdy-House hath the other in an Hospital Those persons that do so freely indulge themselves in such wild ranges and chases as aforesaid little consider how much their desultory promiscuous conjunctions do disturb the Mind and render it unfit to undertake serious affairs they are so much for generation work that at the last they wholly incapacitate themselves for the serving of their generations besides the many mischiefs the body receives by those fatal venereal encounters which are oft-times the productives of misery and infamy which they intail to their posterity for though these stollen waters seem at first to be sweet and you shall have Gallants in the apprehension of the sweetness thereof risque fortune honour yea life it self and all to enjoy a Miss yet they will prove waters of Marah bitter in the end Now the best way to cure this extravagant distemper of a miscellaneous Coition is as a good Author saith to suppose a Woman to be masculine and so weigh her conditions as breeding parts c. for we all befool our Judgments with thinking too much of her invisibilities But Beloved that you may be edifyed by what I have said I come in the last place to shew you that lying is a very edifying thing it tends very much to edification for by that means the Sisters being wrought upon will greatly encrease and multiply and they being extraordinarily plumpt up before it is a pregnant argument of their thriving condition and that in due time they will bring forth a blessed seed but the issue is uncertain because no body knowes whether the cun-junction between them and their husbands or some benevolent Quakers or fifth Monarchy men Now you must know the Sisters do'nt edify a like under all Teachers those that they edify most by are certain whifling Declamers who being void of knowledg and vertue mount the Pulpit with a Gigantean confidence as a Player doth the Stage and there fulminate and tonitruate words to puzzle intellects and vent the foolish and ridiculous whimsies of their distempered brains for profound and solid Divinity they admire these most and count them especially the ablest men that are of long standing for they care not how short they are of understanding But as for the Do-littles the Sisters that are not acquainted with their parts are so prejudiced against them upon the account of their name that they are apt to think them weak Brothers and not edifying at all But others of the Sisters who know them very intimately Cry them up for men of as good abilities as many others of a greater name and profess they partake of their gifts with a great deal of pleasure and are very much edifyed under them Well Beloved you have the doctrinal part of the Text sufficiently explained to you now I shall wind up the bottom of my Discourse with one word of exhortation to young men and so dismiss you Sirs in this your day whilest your Veins are full of Blood and you have Marrow in your Bones exercise your selves yea lay out your selves parts abilities and all that you have in Lying and the Sisters hole service If you mean not in part but wholly to destroy your selves Well Terpole What say you now You thought I believe that I could not make a Preachment but you see I do'nt do as your rambling Pulpiteers that give one knock on the Hoop and another on the Barrel as the common saying is but I keep close to the matter in hand Do'nt I tickle the point think you Am not I a Divine now Terp I am not sufficiently convinced that you are any great Divine for your Discourse consists not so much of Divinity as of Levity Mim That is an Errour which I must desire you to correct blott out levity and write mirth instead thereof you of the Sisterhood are hugely given to censuring but I pass not for that I care as little for it as a Goose T for the Thames as the vulgar Proverb is so long as I deserve not your censure Some persons are so caprichious that if I were sure alwaies to do well it is a question whether that would alwaies please I am far from being in love with faults but sure this is but a light one if any and it is for delight There are none will blame this innocent jovial humour but some peevish morose old men who like old Monkies having either gnawed away or lost their Tailes read Lectures to young ones to cut theirs too I know not why I should affect a sullen melancholly humour make wry faces and look sorrowfully to please some dogged tempers sorrows will come fast enough I shall not need to court them I am sure a pound of care will not pay an ounce of debt Therefore why should not I make my life as pleasant as I can the most compendious way leading to this is to banish all anxious solicitude Grave cura non ti punga è sara tua vita Lunga as the Italian Proverb is There be some Stipocondriaques that can endure mirth no more than Owles can day light but it shall never make me have a quarrel with the Light because weak eyes are dazled with its beames There must be in every thing intermissions to unbend our spirits our spirits are cloy'd as well as our sences if they have not some relaxation by delights The Philosopher that alwaies wept it may be would have a mind to laugh upon some occasions Mirth is that which fits one for business according to the Spanish Proverb Huelgo me un poco mas hilo mi copo I am a little merry but I do my business and it greatly conduces to health too it is a Soveraign Amulet against some distempers which afflict sedentary men it revives the drooping spirits of hypocondriack Persons And shall it then be counted a crime to bring in one merry scene to set off a serious and tedious Act But now business comes upon me so fast Terpole that I can stay no longer to talk with you I am to go where neither Pope nor Emperour can send an Embassadour and if I neglect this opportunity of putting forth my self 't is a question whether ever I shall come to be a Privy Counsellour but rather there is more likelyhood that I should be sent to the Isle of Silly to negotiate there and then you may easily smell out in what a case I should be Terp I have business as well as you that cals me away Mim It is no state business I presume for then I 'le warrant you t ' was likely to be well done for Women in State affairs are like Monkies in Glass-shops But your busines I suppose lies in the Isle of Man not far from me where the rest of the Sisters cheifest business use to Lye and I know you long to be there therefore I 'le keep you no longer from it Adieu Terpole Terp God be with you Mimologue for you have been far enough off from him a good while though you have been preaching as you call it but the nearer to the Church the further from God as they say and you seem to have verifyed that Proverb and so I bid you Farewell FINIS Gentle Reader these faults have escaped thorough hasty Printing which thou art desired to correct as thou meetest with them IN the Title page instead of decipere read desipere pag. 19. read v. 29. p. 20. r. Cap. 25. v. 19. p. 23. no comma at Tautologies p. 24. next laid open l. 3. these words being omitted are to be read And so are the Brothers they say Truth is best represented by Eve p. 30. l. 17. no full point to be next This but a comma p. 37. is transposed the following page is to be read first p. 47. l. 5. next that r. it is