cut the Cable weigh Anchor spread sails set forward go flie look not for any more letters regard not their pictures no longer preserve favours let all your endevours be to preserve your reason I add one advice which I think very essential which is infinitely to fear a relapse after health and to avoid all objects that may re-inkindle the flame For Love oftentimes resembleth a Snake enchanted cast asleep and smothered which upon the first occasion awaketh and becomes more strong and more outragious then ever You must not only fortifie your bodies against it but also your souls But my discourse like Nilus overflowes it shall return within its banks concluding with this that Terrestriall beauty is like a shadow and therefore we are not to fix the eyes of our understanding upon it but to turn them to that soveraign beauty which is permament and free from all change and passion We will now indevour our selves to remove the cause of Money causing Love which is meer Covetousnesse the root of all evill and to satisfie their own voluptuousnesse having their only delights upon earth who desire not the woman but her riches to make his houses the larger to fill his chests fuller being respectlesse of a virtuous Woman and the supreme good wherein all happinesse consisteth And this he saith is to raise a fortune for his I say seldom thriving posterity studying how he may become an eternal affliction to himself His minde is so fixed on money not on the woman as he findes no time to erect it to heaven He employes so much time in getting and gathering of goods as he reserves no time for doing good He runs on still in desire not of his Mistresse labouring of a disease incurable till death cure him He encreaseth his cares with his substance not his love to his Wife and the more he adds to his estate the more he detracts from his content and love towards her But consider you Money-lovers and seek for a remedy while it is to be had lest you repent your delay when 't is too late How secure was the Rich-man as he thought when he invited his wretched soul to take her rest having much goods laid up for many years but this self-security was the occasion of his succeeding misery for that night was his soul to be taken from him O how terrible will the approach of death seem to you being to be divided from the staffe of your confidence from thence to descend without the least hope of comfort to the land of forgetfulnesse for as the Scorpion hath in her the remedy of her own poyson a receipt for her own infection so the evill and covetous carry alwayes with them the punishment of their own wickednesse the which doth never leave so incessant is the torment of a guilty conscience to wound and afflict the minde both sleeping and waking so as to what place he betakes him he cannot so privily retire but fear and horrour will awake him nor flie so fast though he should take the wings of the morning but fury and vengeance will overtake him Consider this I speak to both sexes and let not money and riches be the sole object of your love but look at that which is far more noble that which is more permanent that summum bonum that chief good which will direct you the way to all felicity Before we proceed any further we will hoping such variety will prove the more pleasant turn our discourse a little in particular to the female sex such whose kinde hearts like wrought Wax are apt to receive any amorous impression Therefore to you loving souls do I recommend these necessary cautions which if carefully observed will preserve you from the causes and consequently the effects of Love and may make you wiser then you thought of and to have a tender care of that which before you had never minde of The best preservative and soveraignest receipt is to fortifie the weaknesse of your sex with strength of resolution for the imagination of Love is strong and works admirable effects on a willing subject Give not power to an insulting Lover to triumph over your weakness or which is worse to work on the opportunity of your lightnesse Ram up those portals which betray you to your enemy and prevent his entry by your vigilancy Keep at home and let neither you nor your thoughts stray abroad lest by gadding you incur Dinah's fate Check your madding and to Love inclining fancy and if it use resistance curbe it with restraint forbear to resort to places of publick meeting till you have drawn up and sealed a Covenant with your eyes to see nothing that they may lawfully covet This will yeeld you more liberty then the whole worlds freedome can afford you Be not too liberall in bestowing your favours nor too familiar in publick converse Presume not too much on the strength of a weak fort Make a contract with your eyes not to wander abroad lest they be catch'd in coming home Treat not of love too freely be not too bold to play with the blinde boy he hath a dangerous aime though he hath no eyes the Cat playes with the Mouse but at last bites off her head the Flie playes with the Candle till at last her light wings are sindged Sport not with him that will hurt you play not with him that would play on you your sports will turn to a bad jeast when you are wounded in earnest If this wanton frenzie hath never surpriz'd you prevent the means and it will never invade you be not such foes to your selves as to purchase your own disquiet If Love issue out in too violent a stream it is to be cooled by a temperate expostulation with fancy or else fix your eyes upon some more attractive object divert the course of that madding passion as Physitians do to their patients who having a violent efflux of bloud in one place cut a vein in another to turn the course of it another way Expostulate with fancy as Brathwaite adviseth in his English Gent. thus How is it with me me thinks it fares with me otherwise then it hath done formerly A strange distemper I finde in my minde and might seem to resemble Love if I knew the nature of it Love can Virgin modesty return that accent and not blush yes why not If the object I affect he worth loving If the party affected have more virtues then money and not more money then virtues And if not what then Is not the Lover ever blinde in affection towards his beloved He who may seem a Thersites to another may be a Paris in mine eye Yea but a little advice would do well Art thou perswaded that this Non-parallel thou thus affectest hath dedicated his service only to thee that his affection is really towards thee that his protests though delivered by his mouth are ingraven in his heart yea his protests have confirmed him mine That hour is tedious
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
together and so stroaking again the Palme that is enamored they carry kisses from one to the other or weaving their leaves into a Love-net they will prosper and flourish with a greater bravery No creature is to be found quod non aliquid amat which doth not love something no stock nor stone which hath not some feeling of its effects yet it is more eminent in Vegetables To prosecute our discourse let us define what this Amorous Love is Theophrastus demonstrateth it to be a desire of the Soul that easily and very speedily gets entrance but retireth back again very slowly Another saith It is an invisible fire kindled within the hidden forges of the breasts of Lovers scorching and consuming their miserable hearts and burning in the flames of desire yeelding no other sign or testimony thereof then an ardent desire of the thing beloved Montag lib. 3. cap. 5. saith that Love is nothing but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object Socrates saith It is an appetite of generation by the mediation of beauty Others will have it to be a motion of the bloud getting strength by little and little through the hope of pleasure almost a kind of Fascination or inchantment Tully thought it to be a wishing well to the party affected Seneca a great strength of the understanding and a heat that moveth gently up and down the spirits And others say that this Erotical passion is a kinde of dotage proceeding from an irregular desire of enjoying a lovely object and is attended on by fear and sadness common symptomes of Love according to Ovid Res est solliciti plena timoris amor Thus have we been carryed away by the current of other mens judgements and now have watched our advantage to swim back again and shew our private opinion and that is That Love is an expansion of the soul towards it object which is what ever is attractive and that naturally Man loves himself best and first and all other things in subordination to himself and whatsoever hath most similitude of Man in nature is the proper object of his love then consequently in my opinion no object so proper as the princess of the female sex viz. Woman it being ordained and constituted for the propagation and preservation of every species We will illustrate this with that pretty piece of policy of Paris which prompted him to the disposal of the Golden ball he being made umpire between three Deities Juno Pallas and Venus whereof he was to make one his friend and two his enemies it was his wisdom to win favour with the most potent for his own safety which is Venus if we may take an estimate of power from the extent of Dominions and largeness of command and conquest all which are so clearly Cypria's as they leave no place for opposition It is true Juno commands the world by Riches and Pallas by wisdom but Venus monarchizeth in the most unlimited manner of soveraignty over millions of Worlds if it will passe for sterling that every Man is a microcosm or a little World the epitomy of the macrocosm or the greater World She is that powerfull Planet that makes not only the rational but irrational not only the animate but inanimate creatures and Vegetables feel her influxious power Lucr. l. 1. 22. Tu dea tu rerum naturam sola gubernas Nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras Exoritur neque fit laetum nec amabile quicquam Goddess thou rul'st the nature of all things Without thee nothing into this light springs Nothing is lovely nothing pleasure brings Therefore they that submit not to the Scepter of the Paphian Queen are Rebels against nature and but the shadows of Men but such stubborn ones are as rare as a Horse in the streets of Venice or a begger in Holland I know not saith Montag in his Essayes lih 3. cap. 5. who could set Pallas and the Muses at oddes with Venus and make them cold and slow in affecting of Love as for me I see no Deities that better sute together nor are more indebted one to another Whoever shall go about to remove amorous imaginations from the Muses shall deprive them of the best entertainment and of the noblest subject of their work And who shall debar Cupid the service and conversation of Poesie shall weaken him of his best weapons But for so much as I know of it the power and might of this God are found more quick and lively in the shadow of Poesie then in their own Essence It representing a kinde of air as lovely as Love it self Thus equally tendering all these opinions to the Readers discretion to reject or accept which of them he shall conclude most probable I proceed on to demonstrate the Causes of this passion in the subsequent Chapter The Causes of Love WE will now express what special causes and motives tend most to the increase of this Passion The Sages have sought the true causes which dispose the wils of Men to love and have delivered many different opinions in this point Some hold it is a quality which God imprinted on nature for it pleased him to create Adam on earth as his own image and hath drawn Eve to be unto Man a spirit of peace and a love of a perpetual lasting this indubitably is the first for we must ingenuously confess that there is no reall love no true delight but proceeds from the supreme Divinity the pure and immaterial Essence of the omnipotent Protector and sole Ruler of all Celestial and Terrestrial creatures It is a communicative delight whose chief propriety is perpetually to stream into the hearts and souls of all that are capable thereof Others imagine and 't is reall it comes from the influence of the Stars at their Nativities and these in my opinion are the second causes Prima Deus causa est causae sunt astra secundae God is of all created the prime cause Th' second in spite of Holmes are starry laws Others say it proceeds from Parents and Education and that 's very probable Others from a certain harmony and consonance of hearts which meeting in accord upon the same tone having a natural correspondencie The Maxime of Divines and morall Philosophers saith That fair and good otherwise that which seems to be so make all loves And lastly Money Now it is our intent and purpose to treat of every one of these causes distinctly the first excepted being explained in the first Chapter and likewise in the beginning of this Section therefore we will proceed to the second cause which is the Stars The fairest and enticing objects that proceed from Men and Women that most frequently captivate allure and make them dote beyond all measure one upon another aret by the force and power of the Stars quod me tibi temperat astrum such a Woman doth singularly dote upon such a Man and likewise such a Man upon such a Woman hate such again and give no
Lacedemonians to the attaining of virtue education industry and exercise is the most noble means the truth of which I shall make manifest to you by tryall Then bringing forth the whelps and setting down a porridge-pot and an Hare the one run at the Hare and the other at the pot the Lacedemonians not understanding the mystery he said Both of these be of one Sire and one Dam but you see how Education altereth Nature Let us therefore that seeing our flexible nature is assaulted and provoked to the acting of any thing which is not good endevour to accustome and exercise our selves in virtue which will be as it were unto us another nature let us use the means of good Education and instruction in Wisdom whereby our souls shall be made conquerors over these hot passions and our mindes moderated and stayed in all our actions We will now proceed on to the next and fourth cause which is a certain harmony and consonancy of hearts which meeting accord upon the same tone having a natural correspondency For it is Mans nature to affect all harmony and sure it is where Cupid strikes this silent note for Love is the musick the harmony complexion the genus and very soul of nature more sweet and melodious then the sound of any instrument for there is musick wheresoever there is an harmony And thus far we maintain the musick of the spheres for these well ordered motions and regular paces though they give no sound unto the ear yet to the understanding of the parties affected they strike a love-note most full of harmony I desire leave to insist a little upon this Every body hath its projections and unperceiveable influences as we finde in the power of Amber and the Adamant which attract Iron and Straw by the expiration they scatter in the aire to serve as instruments and hands to their attractions This being common to other natures of Plants Metals and living creatures we must not think but that the body of Man participateth therein by reason of its vivacity and multitude of pores which give a more easie passage to such emissions There then cometh forth a spirituous substance which is according to Marcilius Ficinus vapour of bloud pure subtle hot and clear more strong or weak according to the interiour agitations of spirits which carryeth along with it some friendly convenient and temperate quality which insinuateth it self into the heart and soul doth if it there finde a disposition of conformity abide as a seed cast into the earth and forms there an harmony and this love of correspondency with an admirable promptness and vigor so it happeneth that the spirits being transpired from one body to another and carrying on their wings qualities consonant do infallibly excite and awaken the inclinations The eye is principally interessed herein breathing thence the most thin spirits and darting forth the visual rayes as the arrows of Love which penetrate the heart striking a most dulcisonant harmony and are united one within another then heating the bloud they strike upon the imagination and attract the will which are linked one to another that they are tyed together with an unperceiveable knot and so by this means Love entereth into the heart The fifth Cause is that of the Divines and morall Philosophers That beauty and goodness make us love Which two if they be found both in one Woman she 's rara avis a very rare thing indeed are most availeful advantages Love varies as its objects varie which is alwaies good beautiful amiable gratious and pleasant or at least which seems to be so from Goodness comes Beauty from Beauty Grace and Comeliness which result as so many rayes from their good parts makes us to love and so covet and desire it for were it not pleasing and gratious in our eyes we should not seek it Omne pulchrum amabile and what we love is fair and gratious in our eyes or at least we do so apprehend or esteem it Suum cuique pulchrum Th' perfections of his Mistress are most rare In all mens eyes yet in his own most faire Amiableness is the object of love the scope and end is to obtain it for whose sake we love and with our minds covet to enjoy Likewise Grace and Beauty are so wonderfully annexed do so sweetly and gently win our souls and strongly allure that they confound our judgement and cannot be distinguished And this makes the Poets still put the three Graces in Venus company as attending on her and holding up her train As the needle of a Diall being touched with an Adamant doth alwaies turn towards the Pole-star because the Philosophers hold that to be the element of the Load-stone or Magnet and by a natural sympathy doth attract every part of it self unto it self so a Loâ—ers heart being touched with the beauty and goodness of his Mistress doth turne it and all its thoughts towards her Poetically to explain this conception let us add The needle of a Diall Northward turns If touch'd by Adamant His heart touch'd by his Mistress burns And after her doth pant As this Magnet draweth the heavie Iron and the Harp the swift Dolphin so beauty allureth the chast minde to love In that exquisite Romance of Clytiphon and Lucippe where Clytiphon being captivated with her beauty speaking of himself ingenuously confesseth that he no sooner came in Lucippe's presence but saith he Statim ac eam contemplatus sum occidi oculos à Virgine avertere conatus sum sed illi repugnabant He was wounded at the first sight his heart panted he could not possibily turn his eyes from her This Beauty hath great power to procure love for where it appeareth in the exterior parts in any body it is as it were a witness and testimony of the beauty in the soul For the Creator created all things in such manner that he hath commonly joyned beauty and goodness together in the beginning there was nothing made but it was very good and beautiful in his kind therefore there is an agreement between the body and the soul for bodily beauty is as it were an image of the beauty of the soul and promiseth after a sort some good thing of the inward beauty for internal perfection breedeth the external whereupon the internal is called goodness and the external beauty Many would willingly die for the beauty of others and are so tormented and tossed that they become senseless and phrenetick being captivated with looking upon a beautiful face which hath such a sting that it pierceth even unto the liveliest part of their heart and soul Whereupon it falleth out that poor silly Lovers are so full of passions that they stand altogether amazed making their souls so subject to their desires that she must obey them as if she were some poor Chamber-maid or drudge It is the Witch of Nature as gold is the god of the World for a Woman without beauty hath as few followers as a Man without money hath friends
therewith When aged they use in vain to make themselves fair by renting their faces with painting though more cause to rent them with their nails out of penitent indignation Thus painting used to reconcile in time widens the breaches in their faces and their flesh tainted at least with the poison thereof like rotten vessels spring the more leaks the more they are repaired And the truth is I would have such as these to joyn themselves with Souldiers for so both may fight under their colours Sixthly Pleasant and well composed looks glances smiles counter-smiles plausible gestures pleasant carriage and behaviour affable complements a comely gate and pace daliances playes revels maskes dancing time place opportunity conference and importunity are materials of which Loves torch is made also no stronger engins then to hear and read of Love toyes fables and discourses so that many by this means become distracted for these exercises do as well open the pores of the heart as the body And truly such heart-traps are laid by cunning beauties in such pretty ambuscadoes that he must be a crafty Fox that can escape them for there is still some peculiar grace in a Woman as of beauty good discourse wit eloquence or honesty which is the primum mobile or first mover and a most forcible loadstone to attract the favours and good will of Mens eyes eares and affections unto them It is a plain ornament becomes a Virgin or virtuous Woman and they get more credit in a wise mans eye and judgement by their plainness and are more comely and fair then they that are set out with their patches bables puffed up and adorned like Jayes in Peacocks feathers Ladies let the example of Lucretia be set before you who stamped a deeper impression of affection in the heart of the virtuous beholder by addressing herself to houswifery and purple spinning then others could ever do with their rare banquets and riotous spending All are not of Aegisthus minde who was taken with a complement of lightness This argued that a youthful heat had rather surprised his amorous heart then any discreet affection preferred him to his choise This love is fading for where virtue is not directrice in our choise our mindes are ever prone to change we finde not what we expected nor digest well what we formerly affected all is out of square because discretion contrived not the building It is a decent and comely habit best becomes Ladies to be wooed in and contents discreet Suitors most to have them won in Conforme then your generous dispositions to a decency of fashion that you may attract to your selves and beget in others motives of affection whose private virtues render you to the imitation and publick to the admiration of all Seventhly a tender and hot heart lucid spirits vegetous and subtle bloud are causes of amorous fires a small beauty makes a great impression in them Eightly Obsequious love-letters to insinuate themselves into their Mistresses favour are great incitements they are the life of Love The pen can furrow a fond females heart And pierce it more then Cupids faigned dart Letters a kinde of Magick virtue have And like strong Philters humane souls inslave Ninthly Words much corrupt the disposition they set an edge or glosse on depraved liberty making that member the vent and spout of their passion and making the hearts of credulous Women melt with their ear-charming Oratory The tenth Love is caused very often by the ear as Achilles Tacitus saith Ea enim hominum intemperantium libido est ut etiam fama ad amandum impellantur audientes aequè afficiantur ac videntes such is that intemperance and passion of some Men that they are as much inamoured by report as if they see them Oft-times the species of Love are received into the fantasie as well by relation as by sight for we see by the eyes of our understanding No face yet seen but shafts that Love lets flie Kils in the ear as well as in the eie Also The pleader burns his books disdains the Law And fals in love with whom his eyes ne'r saw Lycidas declaring to Cleon his Love towards Astrea said Whether she was really fair or no I know not but so it was that so soon as ever I heard the report of her I loved her Some report saith he that Love proceeds from the eyes of the party loved but this cannot be for her eye never looked upon me nor did mine see her so much as to know her again For an illustrious name is a strange course To attract Love and good report hath force We purpose now to treat of Money causing Love That is the general humour of the world and in this Iron age of ours and in that commodity stears our affections the love of riches being most respected for now a Maid must buy her husband with a great dowry if she will have him making Love mercenary and 't is the fashion altogether in use to chuse Wives as Chapmen sell their wares with Quantum dabitis what is the most you will give Witty was that young Gentlewomans answer to an inconsiderate Suitor who having solicited the Father and bargained with him for the affection of his Daughter for so much and covenants of marriage concluded This undiscreet wooer unseasonably imparts his minde to the Daughter who made strange with it saying she never heard of any such matter yea but replyed he I have bargained with your Father and he hath already consented And you may marry him too quoth she for you must hold me excused Covetousness and filthy lucre mars many a good match or some such by-respect Veniunt a dote sagitâ—ae 't is money that makes the Mare to go 't is money and a good dowry lights Hymens torches They care not for beauty education honesty or birth if they hear that she is a rich heir or hath ready cash they are frantick doting upon such a one more then if she were natures master-piece in beauty If she be never so ugly and stinking 't is money makes her kisse sweetly Has she money that 's the first question O how they love her Is she mula auro onusta nay then run Dog run Bear they 'l venture hanging to compasse their desire Auri sacra fames quid non mortalia cogis Pectora What will not this desire of money compell a Man to attempt Is she as old as Saturn deformed vitious blear-eyed though they be like two powdering tubs either running over or full of standing brine and her browes hang ore her eyes like flie flaps though her nose be like a Hunters horn and so bending up that a Man may hang a hat upon it and her cheeks may serve boys for cherry-pits doth her teeth stand like an old park pale if she have any has she a tongue would make a deaf man blesse his imperfections that frees him from the plague of so much noise and such a breath heavens shield us as
whose hands the Book might come neither do I write it to be an instrument ready tun'd for every wanton eye tongue and hand to play upon I forbear lest more hurt then good come thereby For Pliny reporteth that Lucullus a most brave General and Captain of great execution lost his life by a Love-potion Love hath us'd against frail hearts Unlawful weapons shooting poyson'd darts That there is things that have power and virtue to cause Love is not to be doubted for the Soul of the World according to Corn Agrip. by its vertue doth make all things that are naturally generated and artificially made fruitfull by infusing into them Celestial properties for the working of these effects then those things themselves not only administred by potions or any other such like way but also when they being conveniently wrapped up and bound to or hanged about the neck or any other way applyed although by never so small a contact do impresse their virtue upon us For by those applications or contacts the accidents of the body and minde are changed causing them to whom they are administred to love and render them that carry them to be beloved But if these be not done under a sutable and proper Constellation you may as well go about to pick stravvs as effect any thing by them no more but verbum sat sapienti Also there are certain seasons which I will conceal for modesties sake when Women though never so forward at other times may be won in the which moment they have neither will to deny nor wit to mistrust such a time is recorded in History a young Gentleman found to obtain the love of the Dutchesse of Millaine such a time a poor Yeoman elected and in it purchased the love of the fairest Lady in Mantua Sed vulgo prodere grande nefas If I have displeased any fools in concealing such things as are to be concealed I hope the wise will hold me excused whilst I proceed to declare unto them in the next Chapter the Power and Effects of Love Of the Power and Effects of Love THe Reader shall pay nothing but his pains in following me whilest I shew him the great power and various effects of Love and yet I think I may as well go about to number the leaves of trees and sands of the Sea the grasse piles upon the Land and the stars in the firmament as enumerate the different effects and disorders that Love produceth in mortals What poyson may be dissolved which Love mingleth not What weapons can be forged and filed to transfix the sides of innocent creatures which Love hammereth and polisheth not in his shop or what precipices are there which Love prepareth not All the mischiefs and crimes which have in former ages been perpetrated Love hath acted and dayly invented them Plato cals it Magnus Daemon or the great Devill for its vehemency and soveraingty over all other passions For saith one I had rather contend with Tygers Wolves Dragons Lions Buls Bears and Gyants then with Love he is so powerfull Regnat in superos jus habet ille Deus saith Ovid he enforceth all to become tributary to him he domineers over all and can make mad and sober whom he list and strikes with sickness and cures whom he list he is of such power and majesty that no creature can withstand him he is to be seen in creatures void of reason for the Pelican gores her brest to feed her young ones and the Storke is not unkinde to feed her old one in her age We are informed by common experience how violently brute Beasts are carryed away with this passion Lions Buls Dogs and Cocks are so furious in this kinde that they will kill one another but especially Harts are so fierce that they may be heard fight at a great distance Pliny saith Fishes pine away for love and wax lean For saith he a Dolphin so loved a Boy that when he dyed the Fish came on Land and so perished This Love is the most fatall plague amongst all the passions it hath the shiffering and heat of Fevers the ach and striking of the Meagrim the rage of Teeth the stupefaction of the Vertigo the furies of Frenzie the black vapors of the Hypochondry the stupidities of the Lethargie the fits of the Mother and Spleen the faintness of the Ptisick the tremblings and palpitations of the heart It is wils darling the triall of patience passions torture the pleasure of melancholy the sport of madnesse the delight of varieties and the deviser of vanities After all this it is made a God called Cupid to whom Poems Elogies Hymnes Songs and Victimes are offered Empire over the heart is given to it There are many millions of Men in the World who would be most fortunate and flourishing if they knew how to avoid the mischievous power of this passion What a sweet poyson is the beauty and comelinesse of one sex to another which entereth in by the eye and maketh a strange havock I wonder not at all why the Scriptures compare it to a Panther a savage and cruell Beast which with teeth teareth those she hath amazed with the mirour-like spots of her skin and drawn to her by the sweet exhalation of her body Love hath walked on Scepters parched the Lawrels of Victors thrown trouble into States Schismes into Churches corruption among Judges and furies into Arms It assaulteth in company in solitude at windowes at Prison gates at Theaters and in Cabinets at sports in a feast at a Comedy and many times at Church like the simple old woman belull'd with a sleepy zeal had a minde to go to Church purposely to take a nap so many of our dainty ones desire nothing more then to go to the Temple to present to the deluded eye a new dresse and captivating Love-tainted hearts and who can assure us against it When it once gets the master-head of reason and passion prevails there is nothing left but wandering of the soul a Fever a perpetual Frenzie a neglect of operations of affaires of functions sadnesse languor and impatience they think businesse is done when 't is but thought on Amor ordinem nescit Love knows nor keeps no order O the inexpressible variousnesse of this Love in some it is sharp and violent in others dull and impetuous in others toyish and wanton in others turbulent and cloudy in others brutish and unnatural in others mute and shamefaced in others perplexed and captious in others light and transitory in others fast and retentive in others fantastick and inconstant in others weak and foppish in others stupid and astonished in others distempered and in some furious and desperate Magna suo ardent furore pectora It inflameth the bloud it weakens the body it wanneth the colour it holloweth the eyes it totally subverts the minde it hath somewhat of being possessed something of Idolatry for those that are thus Love-stricken make lust the idoll of their souls and the person loved
most prone and apt to love The fairest are inclined to love because the cause of love is beauty and he or she that hath the cause in potentia doth easily produce the effect And therefore saith the divine Plato that Love reigneth most in the hearts of those young men the which he that hath but half an eye may dayly see that are honorably born and tenderly brought up who as apt receptacles receive into them that passion Or more probably Venus being the giver of beauty likewise inclineth those to love upon whose nativity she cast her influence for it seldome falleth out that beauty is separated from the force of love and for as much as custome in all things hath the force of Love they that are beautiful following custome cannot but Love Galen saith that the manners of the minde do follow the temperature of the body We see those that are of a sanguine complexion are generally very amorous Hairinesse saith Aristotle is a signe of abundance of excrements and therefore much addicted to this passion Venus tickling them with a delight of emptying of their seminal vessels for a Woman cannot endure a Man with a little beard for that they are commonly cold and impotent The aire Climate and place of ones birth are of very great consideration in this particular And now being in the bowels of Love some will ask Whether Men or Women be soonest allured and whether be most constant the male or the female I answer That most Women are to be won with every pleasing winde in whose sex there is neither force to withstand the assaults of Love as we shall hereafter more fully declare neither constancy to remain faithful therefore Women are the soonest allured and most inconstant Likewise a hot and dry temperature or else such a one as is only hot is much inclined to love for a Man that is hot is hairy high coloured with a black thick curled head of hair great veines and big voice and what a pretious thing a black Man is in a Womans eye I will refer to the judgement of their own sex I dare boldly affirme that that man hath a hot and dry Liver and his generative parts are also of the same temper and so consequently very much inclined to this passion which is also confirmed by that of Galen that a hot complexion or such a one that is hot and dry is much more prone and subject to a violent and irregular love then any other temperature or complexion whatever from whence we may infer that Men are oftner and more grievously tormented with this malady then Women whose temperature is lesse hot and lesse dry But Women are naturally of meaner spirits and lesse courage then Men having weaker reasons and therefore are lesse able to make resistance against so strong a passion And hereto accords that of Hero in her Epist. to Leander in Ovid Vrimur igne pari sed sum tibi viribus impar Fortius ingenium suspicor esse viris Vt corpus teneris sic mens infirma puellis Our flames are equall but your kinder fate Hath lent you strength your hearts to temperate But in our weaker sex our passions finde A feeble body bears a feeble minde Women often become frenetick and mad for Love but rarely men unlesse it be some effeminate weak spirited fellowes Upon this I took occasion one day to visite Bedlam and for one Man that was there for Love I found five Women and those Men that were there were such as had lived effeminately idly and dieted themselves riotously and delicately Ficinus cap. 19. Comment. in convivium Platonis saith Irretiuntur cito quibus nascentibus Venus fuerit in Leone vel Luna Venerem vehementer aspexerit quia eadem complexione sunt praediti They are most prone to burning lust or the vehement scorching of the Idalian flame that have ♀ in ♌ in their Horoscope when the ☽ and ♀ be mutually aspected or when ♄ is in a △ or ⚹ aspect with the ☉ or ☿ especially if it happen in the second or fifteenth day of the ☽ or such as be of the complextion of ♀ and that is a white ruddy complexon fair and lovely eyes a little black a round and fleshie face fair hair and smooth a rolling eye and one desirous of trimming and making himself neat both in clothes and body In whose geniture ♂ and ♀ are in ☌ ⚹ or △ Plerumque amatores sunt si foemina meritrices they are undobtedly inclined to love and erorick melancholy and if Women Queans for Martialists and Men of War are easily taken prisoners by Cupid Cardan saith of himself in the judgement of his geniture that a ☌ of ♀ and ☿ in the dignities of ☿ perpetually troubled him with venereal thoughts that he could never rest so strong was their influence upon him In whose genesis ♀ shall be in a masculine signe and in the termes or ☠of ♃ signifies the parties to be very much inclined to the sports of ♀ Phlegmatick persons are rarely captivated and those who are naturally melancholy lesse then they but if they once be catched in the snare unlesse they hang themselves which they will be much inclined to they will never be free But as Mr. Burton saith the Colts evil is common to all complexions whilest they are young and lusty And some refer it adtesticulorum crisin to the hot temperature of the resticles Now to declare what time is most fit and delightfull to Lovers It is that time of the year when the longest dayes make the evenings most delightful and dispose Lovers to accommodate their ears to the chirping melody of the airy Quire which awakeneth a marvellous desire in their hearts May is called Loves moneth either because the temperature of the season which is hot and moist of the nature of Venus doth incline all creatures to chuse and select their mates or because Venus at that time doth usher in Aurora and by her influence doth excite the hearts of Lovers to rise early to view the richnesse of Flora and the ear-pleasing harmony and love-exciting melody of the Nightingale In what principal part of the Microcosme or Body of Man is the seat of Love LOve having his first entrance in at the eyes which are the faithful spies and intelligencers of the soul stealing gently through those sluces and so passing insensibly to the liver it there presently imprinteth an ardent desire of the object which is either really lovely or at least appears to be so But distrusting its own strength and fearing it is not able to overthrow the reason it presently layeth siege to the heart of which having once fully possest it self as being the strongest fort of all it assaults so violently the reason and all the noble parts of the brain that they are suddenly forced to yield themselves up to its subjection So that now the poor enamorato or Loves weather beaten widgeon thinks of nothing but his
ΑπογÏαφε ϛοÏγεσ OR A DESCRIPTION OF THE PASSION OF LOVE DEMONSTRATING Its Orignal Causes Effects Signes and Remedies By Will Greenwood {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Omne meum Nil meum Nihil dictum quod non dictum prius LONDON Printed for William Place at Grayes Inne-gate in Holborn 1657. To the Service and Delight of all truly Noble Generous and Honest Spirits of both Sexes The AUTHOR Dedicateth these his Exiguous Devoyres NOBLE HEARTS BEing invited with several pleasing Considerations and delightful Motives to appear the second time upon the slippery stage of this World I here present to your view a Description of a Passion too much regent in this britle age The worke is of no great substance not much Satyrical nor Critical only glances like the Dogs of Nilus taking a touch here and there It may happily appear at the first view a meer congested Chaos and somewhat indigested and promiscuously handled I can assure you my meaning was methodical but I hope your favourable opinions will dissipate the foggy mists of erronious misprision and be really clarified in your considerate censure I cannot conceive what more acceptable present may be offered unto you then that which with an apparâ—nt brevity compriseth the Original â—enerality Definition Causes Effects Signes c. of Love For which purpose and your greater contentment I have madly rambled in every one of them If I have over roaved gone wide or falne short it 's not unlike you may impute it to my folly of precipitancy In this to forge an excusive answer I shall not unfittingly resemble the Painter who being to figure forth the fury of a mad Dog the better to expresse it stood long curiously pidling about the froth or fome issuing from his mouth but finding nothing frame fitly to his invention rashly takes up his pencil dashes it against the Picture with an intent to spoil it howbeit this suddain accident prevailed to make his work more excellent So may I in these suddain touches pencil out this Passion with a more lively tincture then if I had been tediously curious in contriving or vaingloriously to embellish them with quaint ear-pleasing Elocution To speak the reall truth you must not expect any additional ornaments of Rhetorick nor neat flourishes of Eloquence or wyre-drawn phrases meer inke-pot termes or a hodgpodge of a laboured contexture but a plain and smooth style which best becomes our subject I am not passionately enamoured on pety Courtships like to those Helena's all of gold where we can behold nothing but Drapery but my sole aim is to speak to be understood I have more laboured at the reality of the matter then ornament of words for he that courts his pen and neglects the matter shall alwayes have trouble enough to defend himself from Moths Rats and Oblivion Fine heads will pick a quarrell with me but this is my minde let him that findeth a fault amend it and he that liketh it use it I submit my self to the judgement of the wise and little esteem the frownes of a censorious brow I dedicate this unto you not because either by virtue of a long experience or of an exact judgement I make profession to be Master in this Science but to manifest that by the Pole-star of methodical observations one may furrow the deepest Seas of unknown discipline And to vindicate my self with that of Mr. Burton Vita verecunda est Musa jocosa mihi However my lines err my life is honest But I presume I need no such apologies for no man compos mentis will make me culpable of Lightness Wantonness and rashness in speaking of the Causes Effects Signes c. of Love I speak only to tax and deter others from it not to teach but to demonstrate the vanities and errors of this heroical and Herculean passion and to administer apt Remedies I cannot please all men for the same cause that made Democritus laugh made Heraclitus weep It is impossible for an Angler to please all fish with one bait so if one write never so well he cannot please all and write he never so badly he shall please some I know there are some counterfeit Cato's that will pish at me cannot abide to hear of Love toyes they hare the very name of Love in detestation Vultu gestu oculis in their outward actions averse and yet in their cogitations they are all out as bad if not worse then others Whatsoever I speak in this Treatise of the one sex may be also said of the other mutato nomine I determine not to run with the Hare and hold with the Hound to carry fire in one hand and water in the other neither to flatter Men as altogether faultless nor be critical with Women as altogether guilty for as I am not desirous to intrude into the favour of the one so am I resolved not to incur the disfavour of the other Honored Ladies I commit my self to the Candor of your curtesies craving this only that if you be pinched in the instep you rather cut the shooe then burn the last If I discover the Legerdemaine and subtle traines Women lay to inveigle their Lovers and unvail the furrows of Womens dispositions you ought no more to be vexed with what I have said then the Mint-master is to see the Coyner hang'd or the true Subject the false Traytor arraigned or the honest man the thief condemned I grant it an act somewhat uncivil to run inconsiderately into invectives against the sex so it is an unworthy servitude of minde to be obsequious to them but I deal with them as he who slew the Serpent not touching the body of his Son twined up in folds so I strike the vice without slandering the sex I hope this Book will insensibly increase under the favour and good opinion of virtuous Ladies as Plants sprout under the Aspects of the most benigne Stars What I here declare Candid Readers is not in the least to extinguish a pure and reall love or to detract from the honour of marriage for my stomach will not digest the unworthy practises of those who in their Discourse and Writings plant all their Arguments point blanck to batter down Love and the marryed estate using most bitter invectives against it as the Author of the Advice to a Son and such like whose behaviour speaks nothing but Satyrs against this divine Ordinance and the whole sex of Women But such do it out of meer dissimulations to divert suspicion being defatigated in a vigorous pursuit of their desires are made incompetent Judges of that which they undertake to condemn or else out of revenge having themselves formerly light upon bad Women yet not worse then they deserved they curse all adventures because of their own Shipwrack Here my Book and my self march both together and keep one pace one cannot condemn the Work without the Work-man who toucheth the one toucheth the other what I speak is truth not so much as I
could but as much as with modesty I dare Let that which I borrow be surveyed and then tell me whether I have made good choise of Ornaments to beautifie and set forth the Work for I make others to relate not after my own fancy but as it best falleth out what I cannot so well expresse either through unskill of language or want of judgement I have purposely concealed the Authors of those I have transplanted into my soil and digested them with my own thereby to bridle the rashness of the hasty knit brown'd censurer I will honour him that shall trace and unfeather me by the only distinction of the force and beauty of my discourse Look how my humours or conceits present themselves so I shuffle them up for these are matters which Juniors may not be ignorant of But not to tire you with a tedious preamble like the Pulpit Cuffers of this age and a long discourse argueth folly and delicate words incur the suspicion of obsequiousness I am determined to use neither of them only intreating your milde and charitable censure of this my rude and hirsute labour untill the next occasion I conclude Your Friend W. G. To his Honoured and Ingenious Friend Mr. W. G. on his Description of the Passion of Love WHen Criticks shall but view the title they Will carp at this great enterprize and say It was too boldly done thus to comprize In this small tract Loves passion and true size To set upon it but the learned will Excuse thy little Book and praise thy quill Thy aime being only to instruct the youth In male and female thou discover'st truth Thy pencil in live colours hath limm'd out Erotick passion from its very root Causes Effects and Signes thou here discovers The jealousies and fears of wanton Lovers Physician-like thou here prescribest cures To ease poor Lovers of their Calentures My worthy friend In either Hemisphere Where ere I goe thy praise I 'le eccho there W. B. ERRATA PAge 8. line 19. dele 1. p. 19. l. 9. r. osculis p. 26. l. 19 r. conducted p. 30. l. 2. r. froward p 33. l. 30 r. magno sua p. 38 l. 10. r. torment p. 40. l. 4. r. can'st p. 42. l. 3. â— to l. 14. r. never p. 44. l. 29. r. vollyes p. 48. l. 33. r. Mistresse p. 51. l. 11. r. fairest p. 55. l. 15. r. sighes p. 64. l 7. r. heart p. 70. l. 26. r. specter p. 85. l. 20. r. prae se ferat cum pharetrâ— A DESCRIPTION OF THE PASSIONS OF LOVE Of Love the Original the Universality and the Definition of it THe nature of the whole Universe according to the primo-geniture tendeth to that which we are now determined to treat o f for it was Love that moved God not only to create the World but also to create it beautiful in every part the name whereof in Greek yieldeth a testimony of Loveliness and Beauty {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Mundus signifying a beautiful and well decked Ornament Therefore seeing God hath created and framed it by Love then indubitably Love is dispersed throughout the whole World and invested into every creature as well Mineral and Vegetable as Animal all obeying the statute of the great Law-giver instituted in primo Adami The which causeth a Sympathie or Love in all things Now to demonstrate this in Man He having by nature imprinted in his soul an affected desire or earnest inclination to that which seemeth good is drawn as it were by necessity to search it out in every thing which he esteemeth fair and good finds nothing so apt to be the center of his Affections and to correspond with his nature her creation solely tending to that as Woman For after God had created Man and placed him in the Garden to dresse it It is not good saith he that Man should be alone I will make him an help meet for him to demonstrate how this help was not only meet but also necessary for Man Moses addeth that amongst all those living creatures he found no help meet for Adam For although all the Beasts and the residue of creatures were given to Man to assist him so that being in the state of innocency wherein he was then he might receive all service and ready obedience from them nevertheless he had not yet an help of his kinde for he could not have the familiarity and society with Beasts nor receive such help from them as he could from a Creature of his own nature Now seeing Man was created for this end he could not continue without generation which could not be unless he were joyned to a Woman which was before his fall a most pure and innocent love But now because of his corruption his affections are irregular and are made extreme there is nothing so greatly exciteth and carryeth away his minde nor cometh more neer to his destruction then this foolish passion endangereth his life To prove which many presidents might be produced Galacea of Mantua declairing oftentimes to a Maid of Pavia whom he courted and made love to that he would suffer a thousand deaths for her sake which she imagining was but spoken coggingly and in jest commanded him to cast himself into the River which he presently performed and was drowned But we shall more fitly alleadge such testimonies of the effects of Love when we discourse more particularly of every Vice that proceedeth from them Yet as well as Man this amity as I have said is ingraffed into every creature this love appetite or universal inclination or complacency given to them at the creation likewise and inciteth them to desire and search out that which is consentaneous to and agreeth and sympathizeth with their own nature so that there is nothing so insensible which hath not in it self this amity innate propending and moving to its proper object as Amber and Straw Iron and Adamant and the Palme-trees of both sexes express not a sympathy only but a love passion according to that of the Poet Vivunt in Venerem frondes omnisque vicissim Foelix arbor amat nutant ad mutua Palmae Foedera Populeo suspirat Populus ictu Et Platano Platanus Alnoque assibilat Alous Which is thus paraphraz'd Leaves sing their loves each complemental tree In Courtship bowes the amorous Palmes we see Confirm their leagues with nods Poplers inchaine Their armes the Plane infettereth the Plane Now the better to illustrate this by example Florentius tels us of a Palme that loved most fervently and would receive if properly it may be so said no consolation until her Love applyed himself to her you might see the two trees bend and of their own accord stretch out their boughes to embrace and kiss each other They saith he marry one another and when the winde brings their odour unto each other they are marvellously affected they will be sick and pine away for love which the husbandman perceiving strokes his hand on those Palmes which grow
The reason why Womens beauty is of such force that it overcomes men is that the sense being too much fastened upon it doth not only as if it gazed upon an object above its strength remain dazled with the rayes thereof but reason it self is darkned the heart is fettered and the will by love made a prisoner And I must needs tell you in plain terms that beauty without the indowments of a virtuous minde is stark naught Yet most commonly the beauty of the minde is manifest in the face as it were in a looking-glass for in it is seen a modest blush the vail of shame fac'dness the true ornament of an honest minde the treasure of Chastitity the splendor of Clemency the riches of Silence the majesty of Virtue the lodge of Love and the nest of Grace because the face amongst all the other corporal parts is the more noble where the minde by those senses that are in it exerciseth its effects and operatious Having discoursed thus much of beauty in general we will now descend to the particulars of beauty and demonstrate their force in causing Love For there is not any that loves but there is some particular part either in form or condition which pleaseth most and inflameth him above the rest And first of the Eyes which Scaliger cals Cupids arrowes the black round quick sparkling eye is the most fair amorous and enticing the speaking courting enchanting eye Hesiod cals those that have fair lovely eyes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and Pindarus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} by a Metaphor borrowed from the Greek word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} signifying the young tender sprigs or branches of Vines for as these alwaies embrace the neighbouring bough twining about it with many various circles in like manner the eyes of a beautiful woman apply their beames and endevour to intangle the hearts of those that earnestly behold her The Poet Propertius cals the eyes the conductors and guides in Love Si nescis oculi sunt in amore duces It is the eyes that infect the spirits by the gazing upon an object and thence the spirits infect the bloud To this effect the Lady in Apuleius complained Thou art the cause of my grief thine eyes piercing through mine eyes into mine inward parts have set my bowels on fire therefore commiserate me that am now ready to die for thy sake The eye is the judge of beauty and is as it were the looking-glasse of the soul in which are described all the affections of the Soul as Love passion anger disdain c. The eye exceedingly lusteth after beauty and whilst it contemplateth the colours formes features comeliness grace laughter and whatsoever excellent quality appertaines unto beauty is deemed fittest to be the principal judge thereof the eye being an Organ by which a Lover doth best discern the perfection of all those principal parts which are required to the framing of a compleat beauty for we often times see by the bare report of virtue in any honorable breast love imperfectly but if report be once confirmed by an interview and the eye be made judge as well as the ear it gathereth strength and exceedingly encreaseth which proceedeth from no other cause then from the great force that the eye hath in the true judgement of sensible things besides the power thereof extending it self more then all the other senses to the multitude of objects and more speedily apprehending them Pardon me for stepping a little out of the way but I shall quickly be in again Secondly Faire hair as the Poets say are the prisons of Cupid that is the cause as I suppose that Ladies make Rings and Bracelets and love-locks to send to their Lovers And that 's the cause too for I must handle both sexes that Men curle and powder their hair and prune their pickativants making the East side correspond to the West Thirdly the Tongue is called by Scaliger the lightning of love But we wil take all the actions and gestures of the mouth together with it what a bewitching force hath a gratious laughter a pleasant and eloquent delivery a modest courting a Syrens song or any other comely carriage or manifestation of the minde a corral lip a comely order and set of two Ivory rails How great force and enticements lie in kissing Balthazer Castilio saith Jam pluribus oculis labra crepitabant animarum quoque mixturam facientes inter mutuos complexus animas anhelantes They breath out their souls and spirits together with their kisses changing hearts and spirits and mingle affections as they do kisses and it is rather a connexion of the minde then of the body What 's a kisse of that pure faire But Loves lure or Adonis snare Fourthly some are enamoured of an handsome tall and slender body some again are taken with one of a middle size and plump but many are captivated with a handsome leg and foot Fiftly their breasts and paps are called the tents of Love for which cause Women do so much discover them for Women saith Aristotle are Natures Errata continually studying temptations together with their naked necks shoulders and armes having all things necessary and in readiness that may either allure the minde to love or the heart to folly What is the meaning of their affected carriages those Garments so pompous those guizes so sought after those Colours so fantastick the Jewels and Pendants so sumptuous that painting so shameless those Curles and Patches their silk and Bow-die stockins with their coats tucked up that their neat leg and foot may be seen their lac'd shooes those curtesies salutations cringings and mincing gates but to cut the throat of Chastity and are springes to catch Wood-cocks A Ship is not so long a rigging as a yong Lady is in trimming her self against the coming of her Sweet-heart Eye but the dresses of Women which are now in use and thou shall not only see the carved vizard of a lewd Woman but the incarnate visage of a lascivious wanton not only the shadow of love but the substance of lust Sir Philip Sydney in his Arcadia saith that Apparel though it be many degrees better then the wearer is a great motive and provocation to love and nothing like unto it Which doth even Beauty beautifie And most bewitch a wretched eie And as another Poet saith Love-locks and clothes which speak All Countries and no Man He layes all that ever he hath upon his back making the Meridian of his Estate stoop to his shoulders judging that Women are captivated with and marryed to Bravery Add hereunto the painting practised by Harlots adulterated complexions well agreeing with adulterous conditions They especially use to paint their eyes understand their eye-browes and eye-lids with Stibium to make them look black conceited by them an extraordinary comeliness Hereupon was Solomons caution Neither let her take thee with her eye-lids as one of her principal nets to catch wantons
out-vies the shambles for a sent Yet if she have cash Oh how amiable is she without doubt she hath no lesse then twenty Suitors never rack she 's good enough Est natura hominum to love those that are fortunate and rich that thrive let them get it as they will by hook or crook all 's one so they have it De moribus ultima fiet qnestio to enquire of her conditions and Education is the last interrogatory But let me assure you these being joyned together the seene is altered on a suddain their love is converted into hate their mirth into melancholy having only fixed their affections upon this object of commodity the desire of which in excesse is meer covetousnesse and on the otherside their hate is furiously bent upon the Woman she becomes an abject and an odious object unto them Now to turn the current of our discourse to the other sex for this desire of lucre is not adherent to men only but that there are some of the female train of the same temper Let the Man be what he will let him be cast in Esops mould with his back like a Lute and his face like Thersites his eyes broad and tawny his lips of the largest size in folio able to furnish a Coblers shop with clouting-leather if he have but a golden hand Midas's touch or loadened with golden pockets immediately they salute him with an easement Ego te hoc fasce levabo and it is reason you should do it replies the Woodcock yielding up the souls of his pockets for the hopes of a smile embrace or a kisse And having emptied them stuffe them up again with frowning looks and serve him like a sheep in June turned forth for a bare neck'd Ewe to seek a ruffe for the piece next below his coxcombe Money hath a significant voice semper ad placitum always pleasing always grateful He that will learn to win by smooth perswasion Must practise much the Topick cal'd Donation Strowing the path by which he means to passe With the sweet flowers of yellow-fac'd Midas So shall he finde all easie to his will Come in at 's pleasure and be welcome still But the truly handsome compleat and meritorious that cannot shew the face of a Jacobus that hath not pocket Angels for his gardians shall live at a distance from gratia dei the grace of her good liking he shall passe by for vas vacuum and be embarked in the ship of Scorn to be conpucted to the haven of heavinesse and thrust upon the shore as an exile of never return again Yet I would rather wish Ladies to let the picture of Love be the emblem of their hearts and not these inferiour pictures which we call money which are so far from satisfying the affection as they are only for the Mold or Worldling whose grosser thoughts never yet aspired to the knowledge of Loves definition Also it shewes a servile nature to cashire a faithfull Lover because he is poor and to prefer another lesse desertfull because he is rich We will now declare what the Poets say is the cause of Love They say that when Jupiter first formed Man and all souls he touched every one with severall pieces of Loadstone and afterwards put all the pieces in a place by themselves likewise the souls of Women after he had touched them he put them in a Magazine by themselves afterwards when he had sent the souls into bodies he brought those of the Women to the place where the Load-stones were which touched the Men and made every one to take one piece if there were any theevish souls they took several pieces and hid them Now when that Man meets with that Woman that hath the piece which touched his soul it is impossible but he must love her the Loadstone which she hath doth attract his soul And from hence doth proceed the several effects of Love for those who are loved of many are those theevish souls who took many pieces of the Loadstone if any do love one who loves not him aagain that was one who took his Loadstone but he not hers And from hence say they comes it to passe that we do often see some persons love others who in our eyes are nothing amiable Also from hence proceed those strange loves which sometimes fals out as that a Gaul brought up amongst many beauties fals in love with a barbarous stanger Fonseca holds and I am of the same minde there is something in a Woman beyond all humane delight a magnetick virtue a charming quality and a powerful motive To illustrate this There is a story recorded in the Lives of the Fathers of a Childe whose Education was in a Desert from his infancy by an old Hermite being come to mans estate he accidentally spied two comely Women wandering in the Woods he enquired of the Hermite having never seen such before in his life what creatures they were the Hermite told him that they were Fairies after some tract of time being in discourse the Hermite demanded of him which was the pleasantest and most delectable sight that ever he saw in his life He readily replyed without any pause or further consideration the two Fairies he espied in the Desert So that indubitably there is in a fair and beautiful Woman a magnetick power and a natural imbred affection which moves our concupiscence And this surely proceeds from the particular institutes of nature and the perfections a Man imagins in another creature of his likeness which he thinks may become another self for with the distinction of sexes which nature hath bestowed on man as well as irrationall creatures she hath put certaine impressions in the brain as in this young man which makes a Man at a certain age and at a certain season to look on himself as defective and as if he were but the half of an whole whereof a person of the other sex ought to be the other half so that the acquisition of this half is represented to us confusedly by nature as the greatest of all imaginable goods and although he see many persons of the other sex he doth not therefore desire many at the same time by reason Nature makes him conceive that he hath need of no more but one half but when he observes some thing in any one that likes him better then any thing he hath marked at the same time in the rest that fixes the soul to feel all the inclination which nature hath given him to seek after that good that she represents to him as the greatest he can possibly possesse on that Woman only and this is it which furnisheth the Romancers and Poets with stuffe To conclude this Chapter It may be that some will expect that I should prescribe some things to cause love as to teach them how to temper and spice an amatorious cup and what time may be elected for the administring of it or how Love may be caused by natural Magick but not knowing into
out with her he that frowns upon her shall frown upon me if she should die I would not live and one tombe should contain us both When the King of Babylon would have punished one of his Courtiers for loving a young Lady of the Royal blood far transcending his fortunes Apollonius being in his presence by all means perswaded him to let him alone For to love and not enjoy was most inexpressible tornent Loves force is shown in the continuation of a design in spight of all impeachment and crosses how great was that of Psyche in the search of Cupid she saw three Goddesses set against her pretensions Juno Ceres and Venus and yet her passion became victorious over their malevolence she did things that seemed impossible she went down to hell and spoke to Preserpina passing without much difficulty many obstructions in the way But where it cannot effect its designes it causes revenge For when Edward Courtney Earl of Devonshire being released by Queen Mary long detained prisoner in the Tower a Gentleman of a beautiful body sweet nature and royall descent intending him as it was generally conceived to be an husband for herself For when the said Earl Petitioned the Queen for leave to travell she advised him rather to marry assuring him that no Lady in the Land how high soever would refuse him for an husband and urging him to make his choice where he pleased she pointed out her self unto him as plainly as might stand with the modesty of a Maid and the Majesty of a Queen Hereupon the young Earl whether because his long durance had some influence on his brain or that naturally as I rather suppose his face was better then his head or out of some private fancy and affection to the Lady Elizabeth or out of loyall bashfulnesse not presuming to climbe higher but expecting to be called up is said to have requested the Queen for leave to marry her Sister the Lady Elizabeth unhappy was it that his choice either went so high or no higher for who could have spoken worse treason against Mary though not against the Queen then to prefer her Sister before her and she innocent Lady did afterwards dearly pay the score of this Earls indiscretion for the Queen having no cause of revenge against the Earl yet she under a colour imposed greater affliction and closer imprisonment against Elizabeth Love causeth him that doth love to ingrave and imprint in his heart that face and image which he loveth so that the heart of him that loveth is like unto a looking-glasse in which the image of the party beloved shineth and is represented and doth as it were deprive himself of himself and giveth himself to whom he loveth for the delights of love are commonly more in the imagination then in the thing it self and the soul doth cast her eye upon those images which remain in the fancy and looks upon them as if they were present When Venus commands all things lose their antipathy such is the power of Love that for the thing beloved they neglect their own good they fear not to expose their bodies to the edge of the sword deny unto themselves whatsoever to them is profitable as sleep to their eyes quietnesse to their mindes rest to their members ease to their bodies yea more then all this they glory in those vain glorious attempts those labours sweatings watchings wounds burnings and freezings all which they endure and undergo for their Mistresses as Sir Jo. Suckling sings Ah cruell Love how great a power is thine Under the Pole although we lie Thou mak'st us frie And thou cast make us freeze beneath the line Yet this amorous passion is not more frequent with Men and Women then it is with the airy quiristers the nimble birds who are overtaken with Cupids nimbler wings annually electing their Valentines What a perfect harmonie of affection is there betwixt the Turtle and his dear mate whose continual billing shames Diana and her frigid train What a zealous adorer of Venus is the wanton Sparrow as Pliny reporteth in his Natural History who empties himself of all his radical moisture in her rites and at three years end when the Columne of his life fails him offers up his dry bones a sacrifice to her Aristotle will have Birds sing ob futuram venerem for joy and hope of their Love stealth to come Cupid is as familiar with Lions as children with cosset Lambs and oftentimes mounts on their backs holding by their brisly mains and riding them about like Horses whilest they fawn upon him with their tails He blunts the horns of the Bull and muzzels the fierce Tyger and makes the sluggish Bear nimbly dance a Corranto Omne adeo genus in terris hominumque ferarumque Et genus aequoreum pecudes pictaeque volucres In furias ignemque ruunt amor omnibus idem All kinde of creatures on the earth beasts grim And Men and Fish with golden fins that swim And painted Birds alike to rage doth flie Thus Love bears equall sway in earth sea skie It is Love makes old Men and Women that have more toes then teeth dance and frisk like Goats it makes old Gowty fellowes break their Cruches I and shins too dance after Fidlers Hei go mad and 't is no new thing take the Poets reason which seems to me to be as true as ever fiction was and that is Cupid and Death met in an Inne and being merrily disposed they did exchange some arrowes out of eithers quiver which is the cause that young men die and oft-times old men dote And who can withstand the force of it saith Mr. Burton if once it pricks us at the heart young or old though our teeth shake in our heads like Virginal jacks or stand parallel asunder like arches in a bridge there 's no remedy we must dance and caper Candlestick height leap over tables chaires and stools though we be 60 years above waste scarce 30 below Maides when they get together pardon me Ladies for 't is my design to touch all are still either reading or telling of Love-stories singing Love-songs or Sonnets talking of this or that young man such a Man is proper fair and handsome saith one and such a Man is black and comely O! what a pearl is he in mine eye saith another and thus they chat when they meet never thinking or willingly discoursing upon any other subject And forfoorh they must fast St. Agnes Eve to see who must be their first husbands and flock to the Artist to know who they shall marry and how many husbands they shall have nay what would they not give if they might but see him in a glasse This is no Court complement or allegation but a downright truth We will now turn to the enamorate and suppose one should endevour to reform him then which one had better strive and tame a Panther immediately he will burst out in Choler saying Do you think that Love that thinks
the whole Universe too narrow a compasse to be confined unto and who disposeth of all our wils according to his pleasure be hem'd up in such strait limits as you prescribe will Love be ruled and governed by the will of any but himself he will confesse his fault yet will not insist upon any other argument or reason but his extreme affection and will not argue with you anywhere but before the throne of Love and there he will prostrate himself upon his knees and vow by all eternity ndver to rise so long as he lives unlesse he be ingratiated into his Mistresses favour And such a one is this who sues for an office in fools Paradise but let him take it for my part I le never ride like one for the County-Clerk ship when a new Sheriff is elected nor strive with him for it What saith he would you have me inconstant Oh no not for a world What would you have me mad as he is no better No I will be constant till death startling more at the word inconstancy then at a Devil so that I have often smiled at those who condemn inconstancy and are professed enemies against it considering that they themselves are not able to be as they say nor more constant then those whom they brand with the vice of inconstancy For when they fall in Love do they not fall in love with beauty or something which seems pleasing unto them now when this beauty doth fade as time doubtlesse will make all beauty do are they not then inconstant still loving those faces that are now grown ugly and retain nothing of what they were but only the very name of a face If to love that which is contrary to that which was loved be constancy and if uglinesse be contrary unto beauty then he that did love a fair face and continues loving when it is ugly must be concluded inconstant This consideration makes me think that the way to avoid inconstancy is always to love beauty and when it fades farewel Love finde some other that is faire and still love beauty if you will be loving and accounted constant and not its contrary unlesse you be unconstant to your first Love I know this is point blanck against the opinion of the vulgar but if they gainsay it I cannot help it Likewise saith this Love-simplician did you know what it is to be a fool in such occasions you would confesse that all the wisdom in the world is not comparable to this pleasing folly were you able to comprehend it you would never aske what pleasure and contentment those faithful Lovers whom you phrase melancholy and pensive do receive for you then would know that they are so ravished in the contemplation of the party whom they love and adore as scorning all that is in the whole Universe they do not repent of any thing more then the losse of that time which they spend anywhere else and their souls not being well able to contain the grandure of their contentment they stand astonished at so much treasure and so many felicities which transcends their knowledge But I am so far from thinking them felicities as my opinion of the contrary is much fortified Had I a quill pluck'd from Cupids wing and dip'd in the milke of Venus I could not record all the delight Lovers take in displaying the beauty of their Mistresses with obsequious Hyperboles and things most excellent comparing their eyes to those of night to the Sun and call them spheres of light flaming and strongly enkindling all others they compare her to Aurora or the morning to the Snow Lilly Rose to the whitenesse of the Swan sometimes to the Myrtle sometimes to Gold Rubies Diamonds Crystal sometimes they parallel her with the Heavens the Spring and whatsoever is in any degree excellent and yet they think those but beggerly similitudes and would go higher if they could tell how They suppose their cheek two fair gardens planted with the choisest flowers of Paradise making the Lilly and the Rose as obscure types and shadowes of those delicate tinctures laid on their blooming cheeks by natures pencil They imagine their necks towers of Alabaster their breasts hillocks of snow inlaid with saphires their mouthes musicks temple deckt with rails of pearl their voices the Harmony of the sphears And these they count as faint Metaphors of them to represent whom in their thoughts words are too narrow and freshest colours too dim Oh! how She-lovers fry under the torrid zone of Love hourly in that Elizium quenching and renewing their heats and letting themselves loose to the freedome of uncontrouled embraces Expressing themselves in these or such like Raptures viz. My Dearest unlesse thou be'st frosty spirited unlesse Alecto's cold poison fils thy veins I le melt thee into amorous thoughts and speak charmes to all thy senses and make thee all flame And thus they besiege and seek to storme Loves-fort with whole volly of obediential Oathes and the hollow Granado's of complement crying out to their obstinate Sweet-hearts to tell them for Loves sake if it be not better and more lovely to lie intwin'd in their folding armes freely enjoying their embraces like Lillies imprisoned in goales of snow or Ivory in bands of Alabaster then to sit muffled in furs like a bed-rid Miser They lie open to the touch the warm snow and soft polisht Ivory of their brests which excels in softnesse the ranging clouds the Indian cotton and in sleeknesse the smoothest cut Diamond and these are lures to catch buzzards Thus wounds they give and wounds they take again Nor doth it grieve them slaying to be slain Now to return again to our Loves weather-beaten widgeon he hugs and embraces all his Mistresses friends and followers her picture and what ever she wears he adores as a relique her Dog he makes his constant companion feeding him at his table verifying the proverb Love me love my Dog If he get a Ring a Ribband a shooe-tie her Garter a Bracelet of hair of hers he wears it ut pignus amoris for a favour about his arme in his hat finger or next his heart How many of such like would not let to hazzard their very souls for their Mistresses sake forsake heaven with Venus for the love of an Adonis There is no Man so pusillanimous so very a dastard whom Love would not incense making an heroical spirit For saith Sir Phil. Sydney they imagine that Valour towards Men is an emblem of ability towards Women a good quality signifying a better Nothing drawes a Woman like to it Nothing is more behooveful for that sex for with it they receive protection and in a free way too without any danger Nothing makes a shorter cut to obtaining for a Man of armes is always void of ceremony which is the wall betwixt Pyramus and Thisbe that is Man and Woman for there is no pride in Women but that which rebounds from our own basenesse as Cowards grow valiant upon those that are
them Jonadab discovered by the languishing countenance of Amnon Davids son that he was in love with some great Princesse or personage The hair of his eye-browes stand upright and grow hard he rubs his eyes very much as though he were sleepy he rols his eyes much His eyes are all white either to weare the livery of his Mistresse complexion or to keep Cupid from hitting the black Hair growing thick behind the ears and besides the temples is a signe of a vehement inclination to love Valescus de Tarenta the most famous Physitian of his age observes the chopping of lips in Women to be a sign of their inclination to this malady for that it denotes the intemperate heat of the matrix They cannot endure to look any in the face because they think that through their eyes they see their hearts His armes are carelesly used as if their best use were nothing but imbracements He is untrust unbuttoned ungartered not out of carelesnesse but care his farthest end being but going to bed Her favours lift him up as the Sun doth moisture when she disfavours unable to hold that happinesse it fals down in tears If you aske him a question he answers not or not to the purpose and no wonder for he is not at home his thoughts being gone a wool-gathering with his Mistresse Stragling thoughts are his content they make him dream waking Speak to him he hears with his eyes eares follow his minde and that 's not at leasure Ovid saith that palenesse is a constant colour with Lovers Pallidus omnis amans color hic est aptus amanti One trembles at the sight of his Mistresse tremor cordis palpitations of the heart another sweats blowes short his heart is at his mouth leapes he burns freezes and sometimes through violent agitation of the spirits bleeds at nose He denies nature her due in sleep and payes her with watchfulnesse he lies upon a bed of thornes he has no order or equality at all in his gestures motions or actions he thinks of businesse but never does any he is all contemplation and no action nothing pleases him long but that which pleaseth his own fancy They are the consuming evils and evill consumptions that consume him alive He perpetually sighes to the hazzard of his buttons and complaines without any evident cause Poor soul he is inflam'd with fits of Love So violently hot as they do move His pulse to beat a Madmans temper he Does sigh does langish and half dead is he And ever in such violencies swell As aske him what he ailes he cannot tell As the old Woman catechized her Son Mullidor Thy cheeks are lean and now thou looks like Leuton pale and wan I saw thy stomach to night thou art not thine own Man thou hadst of late God save thee a lovely plump pair of cheeks and now thou looks like a shotten Herring Tell me Mullidor and fear not to tell me for thou tellest it to thy Mother what ailest thou is it a grief of body or of minde that keeps thee on the Holy-dayes from frisking at the foot-ball thou art not as thou wert wont and therefore say what thou ailest and thou shalt see old Women have good counsell At these speeches of his Mother Mullidor fetched a great sigh and with that being after supper he brake winde which his Mother hearing Oh Son quoth she it is the Colick that troubles thee to bed man to bed and we will have a warme Pot lid The Colick Mother no 't is a disease that all the cunning Women in the Countrey cannot cure and strangely it holds me for sometimes it holds me in my head and sometimes in mine eyes my heart my heart oh there Mother it plays the Devill in a Morter sometimes it is like a frost cold sometimes like a fire hot when I should sleep then it makes me wake when I should eat then it troubles my stomach when I am alone it makes me cry right-out I can wet one of my new Lockeram napkins with weeping It came to me by a great chance for as I looked on a fair flower a thing I know not what crept in at mine eyes and ran round about all my veins and at last got into my heart and there ever since hath remained and there Mother so wrings me that Mullidor must die and with that he fell on weeping His Mother seeing him shed tears fell to her hempen apron and wip't her bleared eyes and at last demanded of him if it were not Love At that question he hung down his head and sighed Ah my Son quoth she now I see 't is Love for he is such a sneaking fellow that if he but leap in at the eye-lid he dives down into the heart and there rests as cold as a stone and yet touch him and he will screek Erasistratus discovered the love of Antiochus to his Step-mother for so soon as ever she entered the Chamber his colour changed his speech stopped his looks were pleasant his face burned and he was all in a sweat his pulse beat very disorderly and lastly his heart failed him with other such like symptomes which are wont to appear in melancholy lovers Galen saith that by these forementioned signes joyned together he discovered the miserable doting of the wife of Justus upon Pylades because saith he at the naming of Pylades her colour changed from white to red and from red to white alternis vicibus her pulse beat unequally and with divers motions It is undeniable but that a passionate Lover may be known by the pulse by reason of the stirrings of the spirits for which cause saith Avicen if one would know the name of such a ones Mistresse he must feel his pulse and at the same instant name the party whom he suspects to be the cause of his malady and take some occasion or other to commend her beauty sweetnesse of behaviour attire or qualities of the minde for at the same time Pulsus diversicabitur in varietate magna fiet similis intersecto you shall perceive saith he a strange alteration in the motion of the pulse and it will be very unequall swift and often interrupted Mr. Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy saith the best conjectures are taken from such symptomes as appear when the parties are both present all their speeches amorous glances actions and gestures will bewray them they cannot contain themselves but they will be still kissing joyning hands treading on one anothers toes embracing pinching diving into their bosoms c. Though it be so that they cannot come neer and have the opportunity to dally yet if they be in presence their eyes will bewray them Ubi amor ibi oculus where I look I like and where I like I love They will be still gazing staring winking nodding stealing faces smiling and glancing at her with much eagernesse and greedinesse as if their eyes should never be satisfied with seeing her It is affirmed by some that those
their intimatest friends making their eyes strangers to their hearts and conclude nothing more foolish then love if discovered and nothing more wise if artificially shadowed Some Artists will undertake to judge who are in Love by Chiromancy by the lines of the hand For say they If a little crosse be upon the line of life in the hand neer the angle it portends maladies of Love Also if the table line joyn it self with the middle naturall line so as both do make an angle this doth demonstrate one to be variously troubled with Love rendring the parties life very displeasing It seems to some how true it is I know not to be possible for a man to know whether one be in Love or no by their natural and animal dreams if the party will but relate them at his awaking for the fancy in sleep is most taken up with those things that the minde hath been busied with in the day according to that in the Poet Judicibus lites aurigae somnia currus Vanaque nocturnis meta cavatur Equis Gaudet amans furto c. The Lawyer pleads in 's sleep the careful swains Manage their pransing coursers o're the plains Lovers dream of their stoln delights c. And indeed dreams do sometimes so far ingage them as they cannot dissemble nor deny them They say that those Lovers who are very melancholy through the extremity of this passion are accustomed to horrible and fearful dreams by reason of the melancholy vapors that ascend up into the brain And because this affection of all others doth most disturbe and afflict the spirits and from that disturbance and purturbation these monstrous and horrible dreams do arise so that many times by reason of their little sleep they bewray a strange kinde of horror and astonishment in their countenances Also to dream of travelling through Woods sticking in Bushes and Bryers doth signifie much trouble and crosses in love To dream of Angling and Fishing signifies a difficulty and the party despaires of obtaining the party beloved But to dream of Banquets and Feasts doth signifie the hopes of the party loving and that his proceeding in love shall be prosperous To dream of winds stormes and showers of rain doth signifie Love passion To dream of riding on a tired Horse or drawing water out of a Well or climbing upon a steep hill is a sign of a vebement Love passion To dream of seeing ones Mistresse in a glasse is an infallible token of Love and that there shall be reciprocall affection between the parties To dream of being a Husbandman or Plowman to sow plant or dig is a signe of being in Love But Sanguine-complexioned Lovers use to dream of pleasant and delectable things as fair Gardens Orchards flowers green meadowes bedeck't with the pride of Flora pleasant Rivers dreaming that they sit culling and playing with their Sweet-hearts upon their pleasant bancks often thinking they see many little Cupids flying in the aire and all delightful dreams they say proceed from an amorous and love pierc't soul As to dream of singing or playing on any instrument doth signifie that Love hath seiz'd upon the party For if dreams and wishes had been all true there had not been since Popery one Maide to make a Nun of But whether dreams are onely the working of the fancy and imagination upon such things as have been seen and thought upon or presages of things future it is not our present purpose to determine We will now see what we can discover in a Love-sick minde by the sublime science of Astrology maugre all its Antagonists First diligently inquire whether the party hath had any crosses or troubles which might cause a dejection of the soul in him and whether they do not suspect the party to be in Love these being considered then you may safely go on to judgement Saturn generally signifies melancholy and by consequence alienation of the minde madnesse c. and therefore always when you finde him to be significator of the malady or in the ascendant or in the sixth house the sick is afflicted with care and grief and be sure the Love-sick minde suffers for it Also if Venus be author of the disease and she Lady of the ascendant sixth or twelfth houses the distemper comes from Love or something else of this nature is the cause If the ☉ or ☽ or Lord of the ascendant or two of them at the least be afflicted the disease is in the spirits together with an indisposition of the minde the reason whereof is because the Lord of the ascendant and dispositor of the ☽ are properly the significators of the animall faculties which do cause infirmities in Man or which may chance unto him a deprivation of sense madnesse or frenzie through Love melancholy Venus significatrix and afflicted argues a great desire to Women wherewith both body and minde are disturbed Wheresoever you finde Mercury afflicted and significator shewes doting fancies If the Planet who rules the sign wherein the Lord of the ascendant is and he who is dispositor of the ☽ be infortunate and in their fall detriment or otherwayes very much afflicted the disease reignes and rageth in the minde At what Age we begin to be in Love What Complexions do best sympathize What Complexions are most subject to this Malady and at what time more then another IT is most certain that there is nothing more impatient of delay then Love nor no wound more incureable whilest we live There is no exemption no age no condition are more ignorant of it then of their bread all have a taste of this potion though it have several degrees of operation and at several seasons Look all about you who so young that loves not Or who so old a comely feature moves not But the most received opinion is that Men and Women are subject to this passion as soon as they are entered into those years in which they come to their puberty which appeareth in Men chiefly by their voice which at that time growes great and harsh it may be known also in Women by observing their breasts which about this time begin to swell and grow bigger and that for the most part about the age of 12 and 14 so likewise it is the justice of nature that those creatures that soonest meet their period do as suddenly arrive at their perfection and maturity as we may observe in Women who as they are ripe sooner then Men so they commonly fail before them Some there are that would deprive men of this power or Love to have any power over them so long as they are under the age of twenty years for Homer saith Love pricks not till such time as the chin begins to bud which is altogether repugnant to truth and dayly examples for we see many to rage furiously before they come to years of discretion especially Women Quartilia in Petronius never remembered that she was a Maide Rahab the Harlot began to be a profest Quean
Mistresse So that through the eye it seizeth upon the liver which is the first receptacle of Love then the heart then the brain and bloud and then the spirits and so consequently the imagination and reason The Liver to be the seat of Love is grounded upon the saying of Solomon in Prov. 7. That a young man void of understanding goeth after a strange woman till a dart strike through his Liver Cogit amare jecur the which being affected and inflamed setteth all the other principall parts on fire according to Senec. in Hippol Pectus insanum vapor Amorque torret intimas saevus vorat Penitus medullas atque per venas meat Visceribus ignis mersus venis latens Vt agilis altas flamma percurrit trabes Now Love within my raging bosome fumes And with a cruell fire my reins consumes The flame within my bowels hid remains Thence shooteth up and down my melting veins As agile fire over dry Timber spreads Valesius lib. 3. Contr. 13. saith that that Love which is in Men is defined to be an affection of both powers appetite and reason The rationall resides in the brain and the appetite in the Liver and the heart is diversly affected of both and carryed a thousand wayes by consent being variously inclined sometimes merry and jocond and sometimes sad and dejected The sensitive faculty over-ruling reason carryes the soul hoodwink't and hurries the understanding to Dawfair to eat a Wood-cock pie Of Jealousie in Lovers the Defininition the Signes and Symptomes of it IT is described and defined to be a certain suspicion which the Lover hath of the party he chiefly affecteth lest he or she should be enamoured of another Or an eager desire of enjoying some beauty alone and to have it proper to himself only It is a fear or doubt lest any forainer should participate or share with him in his love still apt to suspect the worst in such doubtfull cases This passion of Jealousie is more eminent among Batchelours then Marryed-men If it appear among Batchelours we commonly call them Rivals or Corrivals a similitude having its original from a River Rivales a rivo for as a River divides a common ground betwixt two Men and both participate of it So is a Woman indifferent betwixt two Suitors both likely to enjoy her and thence cometh this emulation which breaks out many times into tempestuous stormes and produceth lamentable effects murders it self with much cruelty many single combates Ariosto calls it a fury a continual Fever full of suspicion fear and sorrow a mirth-marring monster Ecclus. 28. 6. The sorrow and grief of heart of one woman jealous of another is heavier then death But true and pure Love is without jealousie for this affection springs from the love of concupiscency for jealousie is a fear as I have said which a Man hath lest another should enjoy the thing he desireth the reason thereof is because we judge it hurtfull either to our selves or to those whom we love if others should enjoy it And if they have any interest in the party beloved they have a speciall care that no other have the fruition thereof but themselves taking the matter heavily if it fall out otherwise being very much offended and full of indignation against him that should attempt any such thing being very suspicious and carrying within themselves matter of jealousie and tormenting themselves and others without cause for Love with Jealousie and a madman are cozen germans in understanding for questionlesse immoderate love is a madnesse and then had Bedlam need be a great and spacious house for he that never was in that predicament is either blinde or babish When jealousie once seiseth on these silly weak and unresisting souls 't is pitifull to see how cruelly it tormenteth them insultingly it tyrannizeth over them It insinuateth it self under colour of friendship but after it once possesseth them the same causes which served for a ground of goodwill serves for the foundation of mortal hatred Of all the mindes diseases that is it whereto most things serve for sustenance and fewest for remedy This consuming Fever blemisheth and corrupteth all that otherwise is good and goodly in them But as the most firme in Religion may have doubts so the most confident in Love are capable of some suspicion The strongest trees are shaken by the winde though the root be fixed whilst the leaves and branches be tossed Why should we not rest our selves and abandon all suspicious Ideas after having had a tryall of a person and many effects for testimonies of the affection yet all these proofs and tryals keep us not from vexing and tormenting our selves because fear which is not in our power to restrain interprets ill the least appearance and buries it self in false objections where it findes no true ones O weak jealousie did ever thy prying and suspicious sight finde thy Mistresses lip guilty of any smile or any lascivious glance from her eye doest not thou see the blushes of her cheeks are innocent her carriage sober her discourse all chast no toyish gesture no desire to see the publick shewes or haunt the Theater she is no popular Mistresse all her kisses do speak her Virgin such a bashful heat at several tides ebbes and flowes flowes and ebbes again as it were affraid to meet our wilder flame what is it then that stirs up this hot passion in thee Some will object and say All this is but cunningnesse as who knowes the sleights of Sirens It is these Idiots that have these symptomes of jealousie as fear sorrow suspicion strange actions gestures outrages lockings up oathes tryals with a thousand more devises then any pen is able to enumerate 'T is a vehement passion a furious perturbation a bitter pain a scorching fire a pernicious curiosity it fils the minde with grief half suspicion accidentall brawles compassionate tears throbbings of the heart distracted cogitations inconstant desires and a thousand the like lancing razors that cut and wound the hearts of Men as Gall corrupting the Hony of our life more then ordinarily disquieted and discontented Next time you see a jealous Lover doe but mark him and you shall see without a pair of Spectacles how he misinterprets every thing is either said or done most apt to mistake or misconster he peeps into every corner followes close observes to an hair all the postures and actions of his Mistresse he will sometimes sigh weep and sob for anger swear slander and belie any Man sometimes he will use obsequious and flattering speeches and aske forgivenesse condemning his rashnesse and folly and then immediately again he is as impatient and furious as ever he was therefore I wish Gentlewomen to beware of such infidels who wax and wane an hundred times in an hour as though they were got in the change of the Moon so strange is the inferences of this malicious jealousie that it never makes a good Logician He pries on all sides accurately
expell such cogitations with pious meditations I could advise Maides as the only remedy for this passion to walk early into the fields and keep themselves continually both head and hand in motion in some good exercise and not alwayes pricking a clout for many times their thought being gone a wool-gathering with Cupid they chance to prick their fingers and Cupid their hearts too if they be not aware This sedentary life is the cause of the disease called the Greensicknesse and it having seized upon their sloath affecting bodies makes them laizie and as quick as Snails in all their operations and then it is more difficult to make them marry then cure the disease St. Cyptian found nothing more powerfull to conquer the temptations of Venus then to turn the otherside of the medall But above all it behoveth us to use the example of an Arabian who presented to himself perpetually over his head an eye which enlightened him an ear which heard him a hand which measured out all his deportments and demeanors and guards of chastity which daily blunt a thousand arrowes shot against the impenetrable hearts of brave and undaunted champions that you may not fall into the fire it is good to avoid the smoke not to trust our selves too much to petty dalliances which under pretext of innocency steal in with the more liberty for to court and dally with beauty as we shall hereafter declare is an enterprise of danger for some I have known who upon their accesse to beauty have been free men but at their return have become slaves We now intend to extinguish the heat and vehemency of Love in the fourth cause which is meer beauty and the particulars of it Be not so sensual as to love only the body and to dote upon an outside but look higher and see something in the person loved of an Angelical nature that is a free and vertuous minde which to an understanding soul appears to be of a divine essence and to which he mingles his soul in love which is if really considered a far more excellent and permament love then that of an externall and fading beauty and consequently much more pleasant Do we not commonly see that in painted pots of Apothecaries are contained the deadliest poyson that the Cypresse tree bears a fair leaf but no fruit That the Estrich carryeth fair feathers but rank flesh How frantick then are those Lovers who are hurried headlong with the gay glistering of a fine face the beauty whereof is parched with the Suns blaze and chapped with a Winters blast which is of so short continuance that it fadeth before we see it flourish of so small profit that it poysoneth those that possesse it of so little value with the wise that they account it a delicate bait with a mortall hook a sweet Panther with a devowring panch a tart poyson in a silver pot But hark one word with you Love Symplicians Let your humane imaginations think and assemble into one subject whatsoever is most beautiful and delicious in nature Do you imagine a Quire of Sirens and do you joyne in consort both the harpe of Orpheus and the voice of Amphion Let Apollo and the Muses be there to bear a part and do you search within the power of nature rifle up her treasure and all the extreme pleasures which it hath produced in the world hitherto to charme our souls and to ravish our spirits what permanency and felicity do you finde in all these They are meer Chimeraes and as a vain Idea a meer shadow of a body of pleasure in comparison of vertues and those divine thoughts and pleasures which may be enjoyed in the contemplation of the Almighty and his infinite beauty glory and love and of the felicity of felicities which he hath prepared for them that love him So that happy are those but too few are they who with wise Ithacus hudwink themselves and stop their eares to those soul-tainting and sin-tempting Sirens What a great example of continency and neglect of beauty was that of Mahomet the great towards the fair Greek Irene whom albeit he entirely loved yet to shew to his Peers a princely command of himself and his affections as he had incensed them before by loving her so he regained their love by slighting her whence the Poet With that he drew his Turkish Cymeter Which he did brandish o're the Damsels head Demanding of such Janizers were there If 't were not pity she sh'd be slaughtered Pity indeed but I perforce must do That which displeaseth me to pleasure you Many such instances ancient and modern Histories afford but I must not insist on each particular lest I should enlarge my self too much and swell that into a volume which I intend but a Pamphlet How many do we finde who having their spirits possessed with other passions one of Ambition another of Avarice another of Revenge another of Envie another transported by the solitude of a Law suite and the turmoile of a family who think very little upon Love how many others are there from whom study affaires charges wherein they strive supereminently to transcend free their mindes from all other thoughts not suffering them to have any complements with Cupid And how many Ladies do we see in the World with countenances ever smiling of humours cheerfull and conversation most pleasing who make love to wits and spirits as Bees to flowers but have with the body no commerce at all The Author of the Theater of Nature holdeth that the Basilisk alone among Serpents cannot be enchanted and I dare really affirm that there are Men who have the like priviledge and have their eyes love proof and their hearts shut up and defended as with a palizado against the piercing darts of Cupid and the fiery assaults of the Idalian flame Democritus made himself blinde voluntarily by stedfastly beholding the Sunbeams to free himself from the charming beauties and inticing opportunities of Women And seriously I think he shut up two gates against Love to open a thousand to his imagination For some affirm that this malady or Love melancholy is cherished by the presence of the party affected and that the contrary to wit absence is the best remedy And this they seem to prove by resembling our passions with Ecchoes but omne simile non est idem every like is not the same thing For say they do you not see the Ecchoes the further you go from them the lesse repercussion there is they diminishing and losing themselves in the aire so the affection which is caused by the reflexion of the countenance which you dayly behold with so much entertainment will quickly vanish by a little absence But may I be so bold as to whisper my opinion in your ear craving leave to insist a little upon this To prove that absence doth more augment then decrease the heat of this passion I will be brief I confesse eyes may conceive and produce a green infant affection but