of that sex there being not so many perils dangers and shipwracks in the Ocean than there are Charybdes Gulfs Rocks and Falls in the company of women The holy Ghost speaking of such saith that she is a deep ditch and a narrow well words very remarkable for they import the difference that is betwixt whoredom and other vices in that though they are those ditches wherein so strangely men fall by hundreds and thousands yet they may happily recover themselves but those that are taken in the pit of fornication and the sin of lechery with lewd women do very hardly get out again This beastliness is a well so strait that they who throw themselves therein difficultly find the way out again unless helped by the cord of special and and particular grace There needs no History to confirm but tears to deplore the truth hereof And to conclude this Letter a Philosopher meditating on the nature of women saith That they are the confusion of man the enslaving of mankind the shipwrack of the incontinent the destruction of the imprudent the adversary of the innocent to which I add out of St. Chrysostom upon the 4th of St. John That amongst all the salvage beasts there is not a more malicious and cruel than Woman and therefore she shall further carry this Epithet on her forehead O Odii Opifex Contrivers of Malice AMong all the unruly passions of the soul none more feelingly torments afflicts pierceth and penetrates the heart of him who will be a slave thereunto than hatred and revenge for these two agree not onely as mother and daughter to vex tyrannize and mattyrize the hated but secretly to rack and tear the hater and revengeful himself and which is observable such endure a thousand times more pain and torment than the other being the Patient rather than the Agent and do often undergo the evil which he intends another The revengeful sleeps neither day nor night but suffers the quick pricks of a thousand inquietudes in the searching of means occasions and opportunities to bring about his designs and it often happens that he fails therein and thinking to put out the eyes of them he hates by misadventure wounds himself unwarily and so coming under the reach of justice and fearing punishment he chuseth banishment making flight the Sanctuary of his life and better fortune But to return to these two passions I say That they are not onely injustices in that they afflict more the offender then offended and more the revengeful than he that occasioned that hatred for while one goes about contriving ways and means to draw reason for the injury received the other laughs is merry and jocund but that the manner of exercising the said passion is very wicked and unjust as by poisons witchcrafts treasons and other pernicious and deadly artifices against the life and honor both of his neighbour and himself These two passions are so smarting and stinging that we may compare them to a worm which uncessantly gnaws the inwards and heart of an infant who languisheth and dies with the pain thereof As the least entertainment of these two Tyger-like imperfections is a base cowardly feeble and wicked mind fallen below all magnanimity As hailâ— thunder and lightning tempests trouble not nor molest the heavenbodies that beautiful diversly-coloured cieling and vault of heaven enamell'd with the Sun Moon and Stars which are the ornament of this great Universe but onely shake and trouble the things below and the corruptible parts of the sea and earth so the insolencies the impertinencies the disdain of the ignorant and the unwise of buffons of dolts and the like do never trouble the constancy the prudence and discretion of generous minds high and sublimed in valour and courage I can produce examples of the greatest Saints which have appeared in the world and who now rejoyce in the reward of their heroical faith and noble actions which they did on the earth but at present it shall suffice to say that even among the Heathen many have raised themselves to glory by not harbouring revenge but pardoning their enemies a greater victory than if they were conquerors of all the Kingdoms and Nations of the world and had taken by force all the Cittadels and Fortresses thereof The holy Ghost learns us this in the 16th Chapter of the Proverbs Fortior est qui dominatur animae suae expugnatore urbium he saith He is more valiant who conquers his anger and bridles his passions and represses his hate than he that storms and subdues Cities Latius regnes avidum domando Spiritum quam si Lybiam remotis Gadibus jmgas uterque Paenus Serviat uni The Prince of Philosophes irradiated onely with the light of nature saw this very clearly affirming That the courage valour and worth of a generous mind consists in mastering and commanding our anger hatred and revenge Moderari iram est vera generositas which is verified by the testimony both of antient and modern Examples In Plutarch you shall find Alexander the Cesars Scipio's and Epaminidas who made it their glory to pardon and forgive Julius Cesar that great Monarch having vanquished Pompey in the Pharsalian fields and understanding that Cato one of his partakers had killed himself through fear of falling into his hands said thus to his Captains Invidit Cato gloriae meae quam illi parcendo mihi paravissem Cato hath done me more displeasure by killing himself than by siding against me for I should have had more honor in saving than in destroying him Alexander the great duely weighing Pardon and Vengeance confessed that there was more need of strength and greatness of mind to be clement and indulgent than to be revengeful Demosthenes that brave Orator to shew his courage replyed to one that braved and defied him to fight My friend saith he I will use the rigor of that combat against you where the vanquished is a better man than the vanquisher intimating that it is more glory honor and valour to conquer one's self and his passions than to trample upon his enemies Neither were the Pagans onely of this opinion for see a reason as cogent for Christians to be like-minded which no body dares contradict or will doubt of that the Law of Grace doth conduct us in the true path of justice and directs us in the right way of vertue Now the Philosophers have avowed that Magnanimity is a vertue and Cowardise vice so that forgiveness coming under the chief Commandement in the Gospel is a manifest proof of the greatness of mind and contrarily that hate and revenge are the issues of a cowardly base and abject mind And we experimentally see that the most infirm feeble and weak creatures do more easily suffer themselves to be transported by these unruly inordinate passions as infants sick people and women as we have seen in deciphering of anger And to come to my subject the hate of a woman riseth to such a degree that it equals
Empire shall speedily dissipate all other vices for humility its contrary being the treasury of all other vertues and being strongly fortifi'd within the soul pride though it were accompanied with the strength of all other sins shall never enter or prevail against it But if you desire to know the ordinary retreat of this unhappy vice I shall without fear of a feather'd brain tell you that is the wicked noddle of a woman the idolater of her own irregular passions for never was Lucifer so proud in heaven as suck women are on earth You may see the proof of this in the first woman whom a feigned promise of the evil spirit so wrought upon that she desired to be equal with God as the Schoolmen and St. Austin an act certainly of the greatest preemption in the world And if she who received the first favours of heaven and so many proofs of the love of God forgot her self so much what shall we think of others of her sex which are not so perfect For my part I believe that if there are any humble of the sex they are like the Sun among the Stars or the Phoenix among other Birds and so it is no great marvel that the humility of the blessed Virgin invited the Son of the God of Heaven to descend into the earth and that her merit accelerated the great mystery of the Incarnation by sutableness and congruity as the Doctors hold for her humility was so acceptable to the Divine Majesty that knowing it to be an extraordinary wonder in that sex he forgot the pride of the first woman and without further delay sent the Word of the Father to be made Man Now except her I know not any woman who may presume to boast of so much humility as to be reputed clear of affectation and vain-glory Humility is so valuable in a woman that shewing it self upon occasions no man can tax her with any imperfections so as to obscure that goodness which is believed to be in her her humility makes her to be such as men could know to desire The Prophet Nathan in setting forth the quality of a good woman found nothing better to his purpose than the comparison of a sheep the gentlest and meekest of all the creatures as we may see in his Parable to King David in the matter of adultery which he had committed with Bathsheba There was saith he a poor man who had nothing in the world but one poor sheep c. mark how he calls the wife of Uriah a sheep for so ought every good wife to be pleasant humble silent and obedient to her husband as a sheep to its shepherd and the husband ought to treat keep nourish and maintain her as his sheep and love her as his darling Whereunto I add with the Wise-man that such a woman is favour from heaven bestowed on man Gratia super gratiam mulier sancta pudorata And again Mulieris bonae beatus vir But of this before That which is further observable in the same place is That God oftentimes recompences the good works of a man by the offer of a vertuous wife Pars bona mulier bona in parte timentium Deum dabitur viro profactis bonis Solomon saith further in his Proverbs that parents give unto children means and riches but it is God that giveth unto them prudent and discreet women Domus divitiae dantura parentibus a Domino autem proprie uxor prudens the Hebrew Text is more emphatical having these words Domus divitiae haereditas patrum signifying that good and bad children succeed alike to the goods and estates gained by their parents care and industry but that women being not the goods of fortune God bestowes the good one onely to such as fear him and observe his commandements The same is likewise set down by the Royal Prophet for having premised Blessed are they which fear the Lord and walk in his trays he adds pâ—esently the reward to follow his wife shall be as a fruitful vine that is reclus'd or shut up in the most secret place of the house or on the sides of his house signifi'd by these words à lateribus domus tuae To which purpose St. Paul speaking of the aloneness of Virgins saith that they ought to be guardians of their houses for in stead of what our version hath having care of their house the Hebrew reads it by a Hieroglyphick of a wise and vertuous daughter having a beast called the Once at her feet teaching us that as the male of that creature is more feeble than its female which surpasseth him in courage and valour so ought a wise daughter to appear more vigorous than a man in resisting those flattering courtesies and deceitful wantonnesses the impertinent and slippery feats of heady youngsters who make much of them to no other purpose than to destroy and ruine their honor and reputation And as that creature delights not in any place but in thick groves and inhabitable deserts and departs not out of them but to seek provision so ought a wife and vertuous daughter to be a lover of solitude and not not to depart out of her house but onely to the Church and employ her self wholly in the service of God and careful honest exercises But if you think that solitude is required onely of Virgins behold two other Hieroglyphicks which make it appear that it is well becoming women of discretion Eustac lib. 2. de Ismeniis saith that the Antients represented chastity two manner of ways the first was by pourtraying a women crowned with a garland woven with all sorts of flowers that nature produced the Rose excepted she wore a net for her garment which covered her face her breast and her feet signifying the pudicity of woman to preserve which all the graces perfections and flowers of the world are requisite except that which smells of Venus and impudicity signifi'd by the Rose which is dedicated to that goddess whose love is unchast The second pourtrait represented a Lady crowned with all sorts of pretious Stones and Jewels Rubies Diamonds Emeralds and other inestimable riches with a Carbuncle in the middle of her forehead which glistered like the Sun being covered with a thick robe all her care being to hide her feet signifying by this Embleme that the riches wherewith a woman ought to adorn her self should not consist in cloathes but in spirit and vertue and although she be poor in rayment it sufficeth if she be rich in head This is to show that not to go often abroad but to stay at home is a great signe of the loyalty of marriage and an assured token of an excellent woman and obedient to her husband But on the other side if you desire to see the marks of a proud and wicked woman take notice of these She will be disdainful in her looks lofty in her speech supercilious in silence dissolute in riots furious in sorrow grave in her pace honest in
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
with himself that it were better for a little time to endure the asperity of a difficult way and worldly passage to be afterwards eternally happy then being intoxicated with vain and perishable pleasures be for ever miserable I pass from the moral application of Fable to that which concerns the two ways which are proposed to man at his birth by Jesus Christ represented by Vertue and by the Devil figured by Vice the one conducing to heaven by pains miseries and the cross gibbets punishments affronts injuries and troubles and the other to hell by pleasures riots vanities and delicacies I would therefore onely observe in favour of you vertuous women that as Vice found no readier means to deprive Hercules of his attainment to eternal happiness than by the pompous spoils of your sex as likewise doth the devil to destroy the whole world so vertue judgeth nothing more expedient to save and make happy this young man than the shape of a woman to intimate that your sex is as susceptible of that royal quality which ennobles souls destin'd for heaven as that detestable deformed monster of Vice which appears so amiable is to entrap and sink and drown her slaves in the abyss of an eternity of miseries I discover this by the admirable invention of the antient Poets Philosophers who shewing of one side the good and favours which men partake of say That they are communicated to us under a feminine signification for Juno gives riches Pallas science Ceres fruits of the earth Diana chastity Chloris flowe s and so the other goddesses who according to them were the honor and ornament of heaven and earth On the other side the said Philosophers speaking of the miseries and troubles of humane life say That men have suffered them through the means of women and under feminine names as Persephone Proserpina the Furies the Fates the Harpies the Gorgon the Eumenides Syrens Pandora c. and as many or more destructive as there were good and virtuous For we find among the Poets that Jupiter the chief Pagan god he could find among all the women that were in the world but nine vertuous ones whom he named Muses whom he lodged upon the Hill Parnassus of a great heighth separating them thereby from the company of others that they might not partake of their bad education and of their vices which made them the lees of the world the scum of nature the seminary of misery the scourge of the insensible the damm of all the filth and ordure in the world As vertue hath made you wise women according to the same praises of the Philosophers the honor of the world the enamel of the earth the beauty of the universe the flourishing plat where nature hath placed her greatness and heaven doth influence it with the rich treasures of his inexhaustible stores the Nectar and the Ambrosia of the living and the Spring-time of all humane things the glory of man and the comfort of our times and age I confess ingenuously that all these noble Epithets and millions more are due to your merits in consideration of that vertue which shines within your minds embellisheth your actions ennobles your thoughts raiseth your designes accompanies your enterprises leads the way to your desires gives that grace to your discourse gives reputation to your silence makes all your deportments acceptable and renders you capital enemies to the vices and infamous actions of your sex who endeavour by their imperfection to blemish the perfection of your merits and are the occasion that the indiscreet and the ignorant of the other sex do not honor and dearly esteem you as is necessary As for me it is my intention to make every day a new Panegyrick of your praises provided I find not my self ill paid for having published this Anatomy of Vices on purpose to make the lustre of your vertues more resplendent in the Temple of Memory and in the Firmament of future ages For it is the duty of every discreet person to blame Vice and praise Vertue without fear of scandalous and poisoned tongues or of men born for nothing but themselves and to censure defame reprove and rashly judge the actions of another Do not believe My Ladies that I designed this at leisure times for any displeasure received from any one in particular of your sex for I cannot believe there is at least a mind so basely made that would revenge a particular injury upon the general or to use such a cowardly Pen as not to dare freely to address it against her who did offend him as well as against others that have done him no displeasure Live then in hope to see those praises and encomiums which are due to your merits quickned by your vertue one day published and believe me as I have composed this Alphabet to cause an amendment in the bad so is it my designe to write your Elogies to make vertue increase in you more and more Virtus enim laudata crescit and to protest to you that there is no person in the world who more ardently desires the furtherance of your salvation and the approaches of glory and happiness which you hope for with me in heaven whether the Blessed TRINITY conduct us All. FINIS