And Nature saw this faculty to be so necessary in man that she hath been content that by more causes we should be importuned to laugh than to the exercise of any other power for things in themselves utterly contrary beget this effect for we laugh both at witty and absurd things At both which sorts I have seen men laugh so long and so earnestly that at last they have wept that they could laugh no more And therefore the Poet having described the quietness of a wise retired man saith in one what we have said before in many lines Quid facit Canius tuus ridet We have received that even the extremity of laughing yea of weeping also hath been accounted wisdom and that Democritus and Heraclitus the lovers of these Extreams have been called lovers of Wisdom Now among our wise men I doubt not but many would be found who would laugh at Heraclitus weeping none which weep at Democritus laughing At the hearing of Comedies or other witty reports I have noted some which not understanding jests c. have yet chosen this as the best means to seem wise and understanding to laugh when their Companions laugh and I have presumed them ignorant whom I have seen unmoved A fool if he come into a Princes Court and see a gay man leaning at the wall so glistring and so painted in many colours that he is hardly discerned from one of the Pictures in the Arras hanging his body like an Iron-bound chest girt in and thick rib'd with broad gold laces may and commonly doth envy him But alas shall a wise man which may not only not envy but not pitty this Monster do nothing Yes let him laugh And if one of these hot cholerick firebrands which nourish themselves by quarrelling and kindling others spit upon a fool one sparke of disgrace he like a thatcht house quickly burning may be angry but the wise man as cold as the Salamander may not only not be angry with him but not be sorry for him therefore let him laugh so he shall be known a Man because he can laugh a wise Man that he knows at what to laugh and a valiant Man that he dares laugh for he that laughs is justly reputed more wise then at whom it is laughed And hence I think proceeds that which in these later formal times I have much noted that now when our superstitious civilitie of manners is become a mutuall tickling flattery of one another almost every man affecteth an humour of jesting and is content to be deject and to deform himself yea become fool to no other end that I can spie but to give his wise Companion occasion to laugh and to shew themselves in promptness of laughing is so great in wise men that I think all wise men if any wise man do read this Paradox will laugh both at it and me XI That the Gifts of the Body are better then those of the Minde I Say again that the body makes the minde not that it created it a minde but forms it a good or a bad minde and this minde may be confounded with soul without any violence or injustice to Reason or Philosophy then the soul it seems is enabled by our Body not this by it My Body licenseth my soul to see the worlds beauties through mine eyes to hear pleasant things through mine ears and affords it apt Organs for the convenience of all perceivable delight But alas my soul cannot make any part that is not of it self disposed to see or hear though without doubt she be as able and as willing to see behinde as before Now if my soul would say that she enables any part to taste these pleasures but is her selfe only delighted with those rich sweetnesses which her inward eyes and senses apprehend shee should dissemble for I see her often solaced with beauties which shee sees through mine eyes and with musicke which through mine eares she heares This perfection then my body hath that it can impart to my minde all his pleasures and my mind hath still many that she can neither teach my indisposed part her faculties nor to the best espoused parts shew it beauty of Angels of Musicke of Spheres whereof she boasts the contemplation Are chastity temperance and fortitude gifts of the minde I appeale to Physitians whether the cause of these be not in the body health is the gift of the body and patience in sicknesse the gift of the minde then who will say that patience is as good a happinesse as health when wee must be extremely miserable to purchase this happinesse And for nourishing of civill societies and mutuall love amongst men which is our chief end while we are men I say this beauty presence and proportion of the body hath a more masculine force in begetting this love then the vertues of the minde for it strikes us suddenly and possesseth us immoderately when to know those vertues require some Iudgement in him which shall discerne a long time and conversation between them And even at last how much of our faith and beleefe shal we be driven to bestow to assure our selves that these vertues are not counterfeited for it is the same to be and seem vertuous because that he that hath no vertue can dissemble none but he which hath a little may gild and enamell yea and transforme much vice into vertue For allow a man to be discreet and flexible to complaints which are great vertuous gifts of the minde this discretion will be to him the soule and Elixir of all vertues so that touched with this even pride shall be made humility and Cowardice honourable and wise valour But in things seen there is not this danger for the body which thou lovest and esteemest faire is faire certainly if it be not faire in perfection yet it is faire in the same degree that thy Iudgment is good And in a faire body I do seldom suspect a disproportioned minde and as seldome hope for a good in a deformed When I see a goodly house I assure my selfe of a worthy possessour from a ruinous weather-beaten building I turn away because it seems either stuffed with varlots as a Prison or handled by an unworthy and negligent tenant that so suffers the wast therof And truly the gifts of Fortune which are riches are only handmaids yea Pandars of the bodies pleasure with their service we nourish health and preserve dainty and wee buy delights so that vertue which must be loved for it selfe and respects no further end is indeed nothing And riches whose end is the good of the body cannot be so perfectly good as the end whereto it levels PROBLEMS I. Why have Bastards best Fortune BEcause Fortune her self is a Whore but such are not most indulgent to their issue the old natural reason but those meeting in stoln love are most vehement and so contribute more spirit then the easie and lawfull might govern me but that now I see Mistresses are become
he made serve him for all weathers A Barrenhalf-acre of Face amidst whereof an eminent Nose advanced himself like the new Mount at Wansted over-looking his Beard and all the wilde Countrey thereabouts He was tended enough but not well for they were certain dumb creeping Followers yet they made way for their Master the Laird At the first presentment his Breeches were his Sumpter and his Packets Trunks Cloak-bags Portmanteau's and all He then grew a Knightwright and there is extant of his ware at 100l 150l and 200l price Immediately after this he shifteth his suit so did his Whore and to a Bear-baiting they went whither I followed them not but Tom. Thorney did The True Character of a Dunce HE hath a Soule drownd in a lump of Flesh or is a piece of Earth that Prometheus put not half his proportion of Fire into a thing that hath neither edge of desire nor feeling of affection in it The most dangerous creature for confirming an Atheist who would straight swear his soul were nothing but the bare temperature of his body He sleeps as he goes and his thoughts seldom reach an inch further then his eyes The most part of the faculties of his soul lye Fallow or are like the restive Jades that no spur can drive forwards towards the pursuite of any worthy design one of the most unprofitable of all Gods creatures being as he is a thing put clean besides his right use made fitt for the cart the flail and by mischance Entangled amongst books and papers a man cannot tel possible what he is now good for save to move up and down and fill room or to serv as Animatum Instrumentum for others to work withal in base Imployments or to be a foyl for better witts or to serve as They say monsters do to set out the variety of nature and Ornament of the Universe He is meer nothing of himself neither eates nor drinkes nor goes nor spits but by imitation for al which he hath set forms fashions which he never varies but sticks to with the like plodding constancy that a milhors follows his trace both the muses and the graces are his hard Mistrisses though he daily Invocate them though he sacrifize Hecatombs they stil look a squint you shall note him oft besides his dull eye and louting head and a certain clammie benum'd pace by a fair displai'd beard a Nightcap and a gown whose very wrincles proclaim him the true genius of formality but of al others his discours and compositions best speak him both of them are much of one stuf fashion he speaks just what his books or last company said unto him without varying one whit very seldom understands himself you may know by his discourse where he was last for what he read or heard yesterday he now dischargeth his memory or notebook of not his understanding for it never came there what he hath he flings abroad at al adventurs without accomodating it to time place persons or occasions he commonly loseth himself in his tale and flutters up and down windles without recovery and whatsoever next presents it self his heavie conceit seizeth upon and goeth along with however Heterogeneal to his matter in hand his jests are either old flead proverbs or lean-starv'd Apophthegm's or poor verball quips outworn by Servingmen Tapsters and Milkmaids even laid aside by Bassaders He assents to all men that bring any shadow of reason and you may make him when he speaks most Dogmatically even with one breath to averr pure contradictions His Compositions differ only terminorum positione from Dreams Nothing but rude heaps of Immaterial-inchoherent drossie-rubbish-stuffe promiscuously thrust up together enough to Infuse dullness and Barrenness of Conceit into him that is so Prodigall of his eares as to give the hearing enough to make a mans memory Ake with suffering such dirtie stuffe cast into it as unwellcome to any true conceit as Sluttish Morsells or Wallowish Potions to a Nice-Stomack which whiles he empties himselfe of it sticks in his Teeth nor can he be Delivered without Sweate and Sighes and Humms and Coughs enough to shake his Grandams teeth out of her head Hee l spitt and scratch and yawn and stamp and turn like sick men from one elbow to another and Deserve as much pitty during this torture as men in Fits of Tertian Feavors or selfe lashing Penitentiaries in a word Rip him quite asunder and examin every shred of him you shall finde him to be just nothing but the subject of Nothing the object of contempt yet such as he is you must take him for there is no hope he should ever become better An Essay of Valour I Am of opinion that nothing is so potent either to procure or merit Love as Valour and I am glad I am so for thereby I shall do my self much ease because Valour never needs much wit to maintain it To speak of it in it self It is a quality which he that hath shall have least need of so the best League between Princes is a mutual fear of each other it teacheth a man to value his reputation as his life and chiefly to hold the Lye unsufferable though being alone he finds no hurt it doth him It leaves it self to others censures for he that brags of his own valour disswades others from believing it It feareth a word no more then an Ague It always makes good the Owner for though he be generally held a fool he shall seldom hear so much by word of mouth and that enlargeth him more than any spectacles for it maketh a little fellow be called a tall man it yeilds the wall to none but a woman whose weakness is her prerogative or a man seconded with a woman as an usher which always goes before his betters It makes a man become the witness of his own words and stand to whatever he hath said and thinketh it a reproach to commit his reviling unto the Law it furnisheth youth with action and age with discourse and both by futures for a man must ever boast himself in the present tense and to come nearer home nothing drawes a woman like to it for Valour towards men is an Emblem of an ability towards women a good quality signifies a better Nothing is more behooffull for that Sex for from it they receive protection and we free from the danger of it Nothing makes a shorter cut for obtaining for a man of Arms is always void of Ceremony which is the wall that stands between 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 more Cowards so that only by our pale asking we teach them to deny and by our shamefac'dness we put them in minde to be modest whereas indeed it is cunning Rhetorick to perswade the hearers that they are that already which he would have them to be This kinde of
noise and horror That had that powder taken fire by which All the Isle of Britain had flowne to the Moon It had not equalled this noyse and horror And when he was able to speake distinctly thus he spoke It cannot be said unspeakable Emperour how much this obscure Florentine hath transgressed against thee and against the Pope thy image-bearer whether the word be accepted as Gratian takes it when he calles the Scriptures Imaginary Books or as they take it which give that stile to them who carry the Emperours Image in the field and last of all against our Order Durst any man before him thinke upon this kind of injury and calumny as to hope that he should be able to flatter to catch to entrap Lucifer himselfe Certainly whosoever flatters any man and presents him those prayses which in his own opinion are not due to him thinkes him inferiour to himself and makes account that he hath taken him prisoner and triumphs over him Who ever flatters either he derides or at the best instructs For there may be even in flattery an honest kind of teaching if Princes by being told that they are already indued with all vertues necessary for their functions be thereby taught what those vertues are and by a facile exhortation excited to endeavor to gaine them But was it fit that this fellow should dare either to deride you or which is the greater injury to teach you Can it be beleeved that he delivers your prayses from his heart and and doth not rather herein follow Gratians levity who sayes That you are called Prince of the world as a king at Chests or as the Cardinall of Ravenna only by derision This man whilst he lived attributed so much to his own wit that he never thought himselfe beholden to your helps and insinuations and was so farr from invoking you or sacrificing to you that he did not so much as acknowledge your kingdome nor beleeve that there was any such thing in Nature as you I must confess that he had the same opinion of God also therefore deserves a place here and a better then any of the Pagan or Gentile Idolaters For in every Idolatry and false worship there is some Religion and some perverse simplicity which tasts of humility from all which this man was very free when in his heart he utterly denied that there was any God Yet since he thought so in earnest and beleeved that those things which he affirmed were true he must not be ranked with them which having been sufficiently instructed of the true God and beleeving him to be so doe yet fight against him in his enemies Army Neither ought it to be imputed to us as a fault that sometimes in our Exorcismes we we speak ill of you and call you Heretick and Drunkard and Whisperer and scabbed Beast and conjure the elements that they should not receive you and threaten you with indissoluble damnation and torments a thousand thousand times worse then you suffer yet For these things you know are done out of a secret covenant and contract between us and out of mysteries which must not be opned to this Neophite who in our Synagogue is yet but amongst the Catechumeni Which also we acknowledge of Holy Water and our Agnus Dei of which you do so wisely dissemble a feare when they are presented to you For certainly if there were any true force in them To deliver Bodies from Diseases Souls from Sinnes and the Elements from Spirits and malignant Impressions as in the verses which Urban the fifth sent with his Agnus Dei to the Emperor it is pretended it had bin reason that they should first have exercised their force upon those verses and so have purged and delivered them if not from Heresie yet from Barbarousnesse and Soloecismes that Hereticks might not justly say There was no truth in any of them but onely the last which is That the least piece which thence doth fall Will doe one as much good as all And though our Order have adventured further in Exorcismes then the rest yet that must be attributed to a speciall priviledge by which we have leave to question any possessed persons of what matters we wil whereas all other Orders are miserably bound to the present matter and the businesse then in hand For though I do not believe that either from your selfe or from your Vicar the Pope any such priviledge is issued yet our Cotton deserves to be praised who being questioned how he durst propose certain seditious Interrogatories to a possessed person to deliver himselfe feigned such a priviledge and with an un-heard-of boldness and a new kind of falsifying did in a manner counterfeit Lucifers hand and seal since none but he onely could give this priviledg But if you consider us out of this liberty in Exorcismes how humble and servile we are towards you the Relations of Peru testifie enough where it is recorded that when one of your angels at midnight appeared to our Barcena alone in his Chamber he presently rose out of his chaire and gave him the place whom he professed to be farre worthier thereof then he was But to proceed now to the injuries which this fellow hath done to the Bishop of Rome although very much might be spoken yet by this alone his disposition may be sufficiently discerned that he imputes to the Pope vulgar and popular sins far unworthy of his greatnesse Weak praising is a kind of accusing and we detract from a mans honour if when we praise him for small things and would seem to have said all we conceal greater Perchance this man had seen some of the Catalogues of Reserv'd Cases which every year the Popes encrease and he might think that the Popes did therefore reserve these sinnes to themselves that they only might commit them But either he is ignorant or injurious to them For can they be thought to have taken away the liberty of sinning from the people who doe not onely suffer men to keep Concubines but sometimes doe command them who make St. Peter beholden to the Stews for part of his Revenue and who excuse women from the infamous name of Whore till they have delivered themselves over to 23000 men The Professors of which Religion teach That University Men which keep Whores in their chambers may not be expeld for that because it ought to be presumed before hand that Scholars will not live without them Shall he be thought to have a purpose of deterring others from sinne which provides so well for their security that he teaches that he may dispense in all the Commandements of the second Table and in all Morall Law and that those Commandements of the second Table can neither be called Principles nor Conclusions necessarily deduced from Principles And therefore as they ever love that manner of teaching he did illustrate his Rule with an example and dispensed in a marriage between Brother and
for nature and perfection to be common It makes Love to all Natures all all affect it So that in the worlds early Infancy there was a time when nothing was evil but if this world shall suffer dotage in the extreamest crookedness thereof there shall be no time when nothing shall be good It dares appear and spread and glister in the world but evil buries it self in night and darkness and is chastised and suppressed when good is cherished and rewarded And as Imbroderers Lapidaries and other Artisans can by all things adorn their works for by adding better things the better they shew in Lush and in eminency so good doth not only prostrate her amiableness to all but refuses no end no not of her utter contrary evil that she may be the more common to us For evil manners are parents of good Laws and in every evil there is an excellency which in common speech we call good For the fashions of habits for our moving in gestures for phrases in our speech we say they were good as long as they were used that is as long as they were common and we eat we walk only when it is or seems good to do so All fair all profitable all vertuous is good and these three things I think imbrace all things but their utter contraries of which also fair may be rich and vertuous poor may be vertuous and fair vitious may be fair and rich so that good hath this good means to be common that some subjects she can possess intirely and in subjects poysoned with evil she can humbly stoop to accompany the evil And of indifferent things many things are become perfectly good by being common as customs by use are made binding Laws But I remember nothing that is therefore ill because it is common but women of whom also They that are most common are the best of that Occupation they profess V. That all things kill themselves TO affect yea to effect their own death all living things are importuned not by Nature only which perfects them but by Art and Education which perfects her Plants quickened and inhabited by the most unworthy soul which therefore neither will nor work affect an end a perfection a death this they spend their spirits to attain this attained they languish and wither And by how much more they are by mans Industry warmed cherished and pampered so much the more early they climb to this perfection this death And if amongst men not to defend be to kill what a hainous self murther is it not to defend it self This defence because Beasts neglect they kill themselves because they exceed us in number strength and a lawless liberty yea of Horses and other beasts they that inherit most courage by being bred of gallantest parents and by Artificial nursing are bettered will run to their own deaths neither sollicited by spurs which they need not nor by honour which they apprehend not If then the valiant kill himself who can excuse the Coward Or how shall man be free from this since the first man taught us this except we cannot kill our selves because he kill'd us all Yet least something should repair this common ruine we daily kill our bodies with surfeits and our minds with anguishes Of our powers remembring kils our memory Of affections Lusting our lust Of vertues Giving kils liberality And if these kil themselves they do it in their best and supream perfection for after perfection immediately follows excess which changeth the natures and the names and makes them not the same things If then the best things kill themselves soonest for no affection endures and all things labour to this perfection all travel to their own death yea the frame of the whole world if it were possible for God to be idle yet because it began must die Then in this idleness imagined in God what could kill the world but it self since out of it nothing is VI. That it is possible to finde some vertue in some Women I Am not of that seard Impudence that I dare defend Women or pronounce them good yet we see Physitians allow some vertue in every poyson Alas why should we except Women since cerrtainly they are good for Physick at least so as some wine is good for a feaver And though they be the Occasioners of many sins they are also the Punishers and Revengers of the same sins For I have seldom seen one which consumes his substance and body upon them escape diseases or beggery and this is their Justice And if suum cuique dare be the fulfilling of all Civil Iustice they are most just for they deny that which is theirs to no man Tanquam non liceat nulla puella negat And who may doubt of great wisdome in them that doth but observe with how much labour and cunning our Iusticers and other dispensers of the Laws studie to imbrace them and how zealously our Preachers dehort men from them only by urging their subtilties and policies and wisdom which are in them Or who can deny them a good measure of Fortitude if he consider how valiant men they have overthrown and being themselvs overthrown how much and how patiently they bear And though they be most intemperate I care not for I undertook to furnish them with some vertue not with all Necessity which makes even bad things good prevails also for them for we must say of them as of some sharp pinching Laws If men were free from infirmities they were needless These or none must serve for reasons and it is my great happiness that Examples prove not Rules for to confirm this Opinion the World yeilds not one Example VII That Old men are more Fantastick then Young WHo reads this Paradox but thinks me more fantastick now than I was yesterday when I did not think thus And if one day make this sensible change in men what will the burthen of many years To be fantastick in young men is conceitfull distemperature and a witty madness but in old men whose senses are withered it becomes natural therfore more full and perfect For as when we sleep our fancy is most strong so it is in age which is a slumber of the deep sleep of death They tax us of Inconstancy which in themselves young they allowed so that reproving that which they did approve their Inconstancy exceedeth ours because they have changed once more then we Yea they are more idlely busied in conceited apparel than we for we when we are melancholy wear black when lusty green when forsaken tawny pleasing our own inward affections leaving them to others indifferent but they prescribe laws and constrain the Noble the Scholler the Merchant and all Estates to a certain habit The old men of our time have changed with patience their own bodies much of their laws much of their languages yea their Religion yet they accuse us To be Amorous is proper and natural in a young man but in an old man most fantastick And
that ridling humour of Iealousie which seeks and would not finde which requires and repents his knowledg is in them most common yet most fantastike Yea that which falls never in young men is in them most fantastike and naturall that is Covetousnesse even at their journeys end to make great provision Is any habit of young men so fantastike as in the hottest seasons to be double-gowned or hooded like our Elders Or seemes it so ridiculous to weare long haire as to weare none Truely as among the Philosophers the Skeptike which doubts all was more contentious then either the Dogmatick which affirmes or Academike which denies all so are these uncertain Elders which both cals them fantastick which follow others inventions and them also which are led by their own humorous suggestion more fantastick then other VIII That Nature is our Worst Guid. SHall she be guide to all Creatures which is her self one Or if she also have a guide shall any Creature have a better guide then we The affections of lust and anger yea even to err is natural shall we follow these Can she be a good guide to us which hath corrupted not us only but her self was not the first Man by the desire of knowledge corrupted even in the whitest integrity of Nature And did not Nature if Nature did any thing infuse into him this desire of knowledge and so this corruption in him into us If by Nature we shall understand our essence our definition or reason nobleness then this being alike common to all the Idiot and the Wizard being equally reasonable why should not all men having equally all one nature follow one course Or if we shall understand our incli nations alas how unable a guide is that which follows the temperature of our slimie bodies for we cannot say that we derive our inclinations our minds or souls from our Parents by any way to say that it is all from all is error in reason for then with the first nothing remains or is a part from all is error in experience for then this part equally imparted to many children would like Gavel-kind lands in few generations become nothing or to say it by communication is error in Divinity for to communicate the ability of communicating whole essence with any but God is utter blasphemy And if thou hit thy Fathers nature and inclination he also had his Fathers and so climbing up all comes of one man and have one nature all shall imbrace one course but that cannot be therefore our complexions and whole bodies we inherit from Parents our inclinations and minds follow that For our minde is heavy in our bodies afflictions and rejoyceth in our bodies pleasure how then shall this nature governe us that is governed by the worst part of us Nature though oft chased away it will return 't is true but those good motions and inspirations which be our guides must be wooed courted and welcomed or else they abandon us And that old Axiome nihil invita c. must not be said thou shalt but thou wilt doe nothing against Nature so unwilling he notes us to curbe our naturall appetites Wee call our bastards alwayes our naturall issue and we define a Foole by nothing so ordinary as by the name of naturall And that poore knowledg whereby we conceive what rain is what wind what thunder we call Metaphysicke supernaturall such small things such no things do we allow to our pliant Natures apprehension Lastly by following her we lose the pleasant and lawfull commodities of this life for we shall drinke water and eate rootes and those not sweet and delicate as now by Mans art and industry they are made we shall lose all the necessities of societies lawes arts and sciences which are all the workemanship of Man yea we shall lack the last best refuge of misery death because no death is naturall for if yee will not dare to call all death violent though I see not why sicknesses be not violences yet causes of all deaths proceed of the defect of that which nature made perfect and would preserve and therefore all against nature IX That only Cowards dare die EXtreames are equally removed from the meane so that headlong desperatenesse asmuch offends true valour as backward Cowardice of which sort I reckon justly all un-inforced deaths When will your valiant man die of necessity so Cowards suffer what cannot be avoided and to run into death unimportun'd is to run into the first condemned de sperateness Will he die when he is rich and happie then by living he may do more good and in afflictions and miseries death is the chosen refuge of Cowards Fortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest But it is taught and practised among our Gallants that rather than our reputations suffer any maim or we any misery we shall offer our breasts to the Cannons mouth yea to our swords points And this seems a very brave and a very climbing which is a Cowardly earthly and indeed a very groveling spirit vvhy do they chain these slaves to the Gallies but that they thrust their deaths and would at every loose leap into the Sea vvhy do they take weapons from condemned men but to barr them of that ease which Cowards affect a speedy death Truely this life is a tempest and a warfare and he which dares die to escape the anguish of it seems to me but so valiant as he which dares hang himself least he be prest to the wars I have seen one in that extremity of Melancholy which was then become madness to make his own breath an Instrument to stay his breath and labour to choak himself but alas he was mad And we knew another that languished under the oppression of a poor disgrace so much that he took more pains to die then would have served to have nourished life and spirit enough to have out-liv'd his disgrace vvhat Fool will call this Cowardlyness Valour or this Baseness Humility And lastly of these men which die the Allegoricall death of entring into Religion how few are found fit for any shew of valiancy but onely a soft and supple metal made only for Cowardly solitariness X. That a Wise Man is known by much laughing RIdi si sapis ô puella ride If thou beest wise laugh for since the powers of discourse reason and laughter be equally proper unto Man only why shall not he be only most wise which hath most use of laughing as well as he which hath most of reasoning and discoursing I always did and shall understand that Adage Per risum multum possis cognoscere stultum That by much laughing thou maist know there is a fool not that the laughers are fools but that among them there is some fool at whom wise men laugh which moved Erasmus to put this as his first Argument in the mouth of his Folly that she made Beholders laugh for fools are the most laughed at and laugh the least themselves of any
domestick and in ordinary and they and wives wait but by turns and agree as well as they had lived in the Ark. The old Moral reason that Bastards inherit wickedness from their Parents and so are in a better way to preferment by having a stock before-hand then those that build all their fortune upon the poor and weak stock of Original sin might prevail with me but that since we are fallen into such times as now the World might spare the Devil because she could be bad enough without him I see men scorn to be wicked by example or to be beholding to others for their damnation It seems reasonable that since Laws rob them of succession in civil benefits they should have something else equivalent As Nature which is Laws pattern having denyed Women Constancy to one hath provided them with cunning to allure many and so Bastards de jure should have better wits and experience But besides that by experience we see many fools amongst them we should take from them one of their chiefest helps to preferment and we should deny them to be fools and that which is only left that women chuse worthier men then their husbands is false de facto either then it must be that the Church having removed them from all place in the publick Service of God they have better means than others to be wicked and so fortunate Or else because the two greatest powers in this world the Devil and Princes concur to their greatness the one giving bastardy the other legitimation As Nature frames and conserves great bodies of contraries Or the cause is because they abound most at Court which is the forge where fortunes are made or at least the shop where they be sold. II. Why Puritans make long Sermons IT needs not for perspicuousness for God knows they are plain enough nor do all of them use Sem-brief-Accents for some of them have crotchets enough It may be they intend not to rise like glorious Tapers and Torches but like Thin-wretched-sick-watching-Câ—…s which languish and are in a Divine Consumption from the first minute yea in their snuff and stink when others are in their more profitable glory I have thought sometimes that out of conscience they allow long measure to course ware And sometimes that usurping in that place a liberty to speak freely of Kings they would reigne as long as they could But now I think they do it out of a zealous imagination that It is their duty to Preach on till their Auditory wake III. Why did the Divel reserve Iesuites till these latter dayes DId he know that our Age would deny the Devils possessing and therefore provided by these to possesse men and kingdomes Or to end the disputation of Schoolmen why the Divel could not make lice in Egypt and whether those things bee presented there might be true hath he sent us a true and reall plague worse than those ten Or in oâ—…ntation of the greatness of his Kingdome which even division cannot shake doth he send us these which disagree with all the rest Or knowing that our times should discover the Indies and abolish their Idolatry doth he send these to give them another for it Or peradventure they have been in the Roman Church these thousand yeeres though we have called them by other names IV. Why is there more Variety of Green then of other Colours IT is because it is the figure of Youth wherin nature would provide as many green as youth hath affections and so present a Sea-green for profuse wasters in voyages a Grasse-green for sudden new men enobled from Grasiers and a Goose-green for such Polititians as pretend to preserve the Capitol Or else Prophetically foreseeing an age wherein they shall all hunt And for such as misdemeane themselves a Willo-green For Magistrates must aswell have Fasces born before them to chastize the small offences as Secures to cut off the great V. Why do young Lay-men so much study Divinity IS it because others tending busily Churches preferment neglect study Or had the Church of Rome shut up all our wayes till the Lutherans broke down their uttermost stubborn doores and the Calvinists picked their inwardest and subtlest lockes Surely the Devill cannot be such a Foole to hope that he shall make this study contemptible by making it common Nor that as the Dwellers by the River Origus are said by drawing infinite ditches to sprinkle their barren Country to have exhausted and intercepted their main channell and so lost their more profitable course to the sea so we by providing every ones selfe divinity enough for his own use should neglect our Teachers and Fathers He cannot hope for better heresies then hee hath had nor was his Kingdome ever so much advanced by debating Religion though with some aspersions of Error as by a dull and stupid security in which many gross things are swallowed Possible out of such an ambition as we have now to speake plainly and fellow-like with Lords and Kings we thinke also to acquaint our selves with Gods secrets or perchance when we study it by mingling humane respects It is not Divinity VI. Why hath the common Opinion afforded Women Soules IT is agreed that we have not so much from them as any part of either our mortal soules of sense or growth and we deny soules to others equall to them in all but in speech for which they are beholding to their bodily instruments For perchance an Oxes heart or a Goates or a Foxes or a Serpents would speake just so if it were in the breast and could move that tongue and jawes Have they so many advantages and means to hurt us for ever their loving destroyed us that we dare not displease them but give them what they will And so when some call them Angels some Goddesses and the Palpulian Hereticks made them Bishops we descend so much with the stream to allow them Soules Or do we somewhat in this dignifying of them flatter Princes and great Personages that are so much governed by them Or do we in that easiness and prodigality wherein we daily lose our own souls to we care not whom so labour to perswade our selves that sith a woman hath a soul a soul is no great matter Or do we lend them souls but for use since they for our sakes give their souls again and their bodies to boot Or perchance because the Devil who is all soul doth most mischief and for convenience and proportion because they would come nearer him we allow them some souls and so as the Romans naturalized some Provinces in revenge and made them Romans only for the burthen of the Common-wealth so we have given women souls only to make them capable of damnation VII Why are the fairest falsest I Mean not of fals Alchimy beauty for then the question should be inverted Why are the falsest fairest It is not only because they are much solicited and sought for so is gold yet it is not so common and this
refuse to be used to that end for which they were only made The Ape bringeth forth her young for the most part by twins that which she loves best she killeth by pressing it too hard so foolish maids soothing themselves with a false conceit of vertue in fond obstinacie live and die maids and so not onely kill in themselves the vertue of Virginity and of a Vertue make it a Vice but they also accuse their parents in condemning marriage If this application hold not touch yet there may be an excellent one gathered from an Apes tender love to Conies in keeping them from the Weasel and Ferret From this similitude of an Ape an old Maid did the foresaid proverb first arise But alas there are some old Maids that are Virgins much against their wills and fain would change their Virgin-life for a Married such if they never have had any offer of fit Husbands are in some sort excusable and their willingnesse their desire to marry and their forbearance from all dishonest and unlawfull copulation may be a kind of inclination to vertue although not Vertue it selfe This Vertue of Virginity though it be small and fruitlesse it is an extraordinary and no common Vertue All other Vertues lodge in the Will it is the Will that makes them vertues But it is the unwillingnesse to keep it the desire to forsake it that makes this a vertue As in the naturall generation and formation made of the seed in the womb of a woman the body is joynted and organized about the 28 day and so it begins to be no more an Embrion but capable as a matter prepared to its form to receive the soule which faileth not to insinuate and innest it selfe into the body about the fortieth day about the third month it hath motion and sense Even so Virginity is an Embrion an unfashioned lump till it attain to a certain time which is about twelve years of age in women fourteen in men and then it beginneth to have the soule of Love infused into it and to become a vertue There is also a certain limited time when it ceaseth to be a vertue which in men is about fourty in women about thirty years of age yea the losse of so much time makes their Virginity a Vice were not their endeavour wholly bent and their desires altogether fixt upon marriage In Harvest time do we not account it a great vice of sloath and negligence in a Husband-man to overslip a week or ten dayes after his fruits are fully ripe May we not much more account it a more heynous vice for a Virgin to let her Fruit in potentia consume and rot to nothing and to let the vertue of her Virginity degenerate into Vice for Virginity ever kept is ever lost Avarice is the greatest deadly sin next Pride it takes more pleasure in hoording Treasure then in making use of it and will neither let the possessor nor others take benefit by it during the Misers life yet it remains intire and when the Miser dies most come to som body Virginity ever kept is a vice far wors then Avarice it will neither let the possessor nor others take benefit by it nor can it be bequeathed to any with long keeping it decayes and withers and becomes corrupt and nothing worth Thus seeing that Virginity becomes a vice in defect by exceeding a limited time I counsell all female Virgins to make choyce of some Paracelsian for their Physitian to prevent the death of that Vertue The Paracelsians curing like by like say That if the lives of living Creatures could be taken down they would make us immortall By this Rule female Virgins by a discreet marriage should swallow down into their Virginity another Virginity and devour such a life spirit into their womb that it might make them as it were immortall here on earth besides their perfect immortality in heaven And that Vertue which otherwise would putrifie and corrupt shall then be compleat and shall be recorded in Heaven and enrolled here on Earth and the name of Virgin shal be exchanged for a farre more honorable name A Wife A sheaf of Miscellany EPIGRAMS Written in Latin by I. D. Translated by J. Main D. D. 1. Upon one who for his wives fault took it ill to be called Cuckold RUde scoffer why dost cal me Cuckold No Loose fires of Love did in my bosome grow No wedlock knot by me unti'd hath bin Nor am I guilty of anothers sin Thy wife being not her own with thy limbs she Fool'd Cuckold doth commit Adulterie Being then one flesh and thou her Head t is fit The Horus in Justice on thy Brow should fit 2. Upon One Roger a Rich Niggard familiarly unacquainted with the Author BOttomless pit of gold slave to thy Chest Poor in the midst of Riches not possest Self Tantalus To thine own wealth a Thief Affording scarce thy half-starvâ—…d Womb relief Cheating thy limbs with cloths transparent worn Plague to thy self To all men else a scorn Who madly dost mens silver shapes adore And thence getst Cheeks pale as the silver Ore Feare not I 'le beg my mind 's above thy pelf Good Thrifty Hodge give something to thy self 3. Upon a Whore barren and not barren THy oft repeated is no Childless sin When thou art lain with stil thy purs lies in 4. On the same Thy dowbak'd Lusts and Tail which vainly wags Are recompenc'd by thy still teeming bags 5. On an old Bawd Loe I an old Whore have to young resign'd Yet in my old flesh dwels a young whores mind 6. On the same Though ramage grown Th' art still for carting fit Thy will with others bodies doth commit 7. On the same She whose scarce yet quencht lust to freeze begins Liv'd by her own once now by others sins 8. On a Bawdy-house Here Mal providing for Threescore Sets up the Trade she learn'd before VVith watchings many sweatings more 9. Upon an old rich scolding Woman who being married to a poor young man upbraided him daily with the smallness of his Fortune The Husbands complaint VVhat wife like mine hath any Husband known By day she is all Noyse by night all stone 10. Another Shut thy purse-mouth Old Trot And let 's appeal VVho'd without sauce taste so deform'd a Meal 11. On her unpleasing Kisses They can't be Kisses call'd but toothless Nips VVhich Beldam come from thy faint trembling lips 12. Another When thy dry grissels with my soft lips close I give thee kisses thou return'st me blows 13. Another Thy senses faile thee And pray God they may To me thy Cofers will their loss defray 14. On the same old Wife Thou art no Woman nor no womans part Infant or Girl say who the Devil art 15. To the same Be not seen Thou whom I distracted love Least my prodigious dotage scandal prove For being a meer Image 't wil be spread That I no wife did but an Idol wed 16. Upon one who saw the Picture of his
way of SATYR Concerning The disposition of Jesuites The Creation of a new Hell The establishing of a Church in the Moon There is also added an Apologie for IESUITES All dedicated to the Two adversary Angels which are Protectors of the Papall Consistory and of the Colledge of SORBON By JOHN DONNE Doctor of Divinity and late Dean of Saint Pauls Printed at London 1653. To the two tutelar Angels Protectors of the Popes Consistory and of the Colledg OF SORBON MOst noble couple of Angels lest it should be said that you did never agree and never meet but that you did ever abhorre one another and ever Resemble Janus with a diverse face I attempted to bring and joyne you together once in these papers not that I might compose your differences for you have not choson me for Arbiâ—…or but that you might beware of an enemy common to you both I will relate what I saw I was in an Extasie and My little wandring sportful Soul Guest and companion of my body had liberty to wander through all places and to survey and reckon all the roomes and all the volumes of the heavens and to comprehend the situation the dimensions the nature the people the policie both of the swimming Ilands the Planets and of all those which are fixed in the Firmament Of which I think it an honester part as yet to be silent then to doe Galilaeo wrong by speaking of it who of late hath summoned the other worlds the Stars to come neerer to him and give him an account of themselves Or to Keppler who as himselfe testifies of himselfe ever since Tycho Braches death hath received it into his care that no new thing should be done in heaven without his knowledge For by the law Prevention must take place and therefore what they have found and discovered first I am content they speake and utter first Yet this they may vouchsafe to take from me that they shall hardly find Enoch or Elias any where in their circuit When I had surveied all the heavens then as The Larke by busie and laborious wayes Having climb'd up th'ethereall hil doth raise His Hymnes to Phoebus Harpe And striking then His sailes his wings doth fal down back agen So suddenly that one may safely say A stone came lazily that came that Way In the twinckling of an eye I saw all the roomes in Hell open to my sight And by the benefit of certain spectacles I know not of what making but I thinke of the same by which Gregory the great and Beda did discerne so distinctly the soules of their friends when they were discharged from their bodies and sometimes the soules of such men as they knew not by sight and of some that were never in the world and yet they could distinguish them flying into Heaven or conversing with living men I saw all the channels in the bowels of the Earth and all the inhabitants of all nations and of all ages were suddenly made familiar to mee I thinke truly Robert Aquinas when he took Christ's long Oration as he hung upon the Crosse did use some such Instrument as this but applyed to the eare And so I thinke did he which dedicated to Adrian 6. that Sermon which Christ made in praise of his Father Ioseph for else how did they heare that which none but they ever heard As for the Suburbs of Hel I mean both Limbo and Purgatory I must confess I passed them over so negligently that I saw them not and I was hungerly carried to finde new places never discovered before For Purgatory did not seem worthy to me of much diligence because it may seem already to have been beleeved by some persons in some corners of the Roman Church for about 50 yeares that is ever since the Councell of Trent had a minde to fulfill the prophecies of Homer Virgil and the other Patriarks of the Papists and being not satisfied with making one Transubstantiation purposed to bring in another which is to change Fables into Articles of Faith Proceeding therefore to more inward places I saw a secret place where there were not many beside Lucifer himselfe to which onely they had title which had so attempted any innovation in this life that they gave an affront to all Antiquity and induced doubts and anxieties and scruples and after a libertie of beleeving what they would at length established opinions directly contrary to all established before Of which place in Hell Lucifer afforded us hertofore some little knowledge when more then 200. yeares since in an Epistle written to the Cardinall S. Sexti he promised him a roome in his palace in the remotest part of his eternall Chaos which I take to be this place And here Pope Boniface 3. and Mahomet seemed to contend about the highest room He gloried of having expelled an old Religion and Mahomet of having brought in a new each of them a great deluge to the world But it is to be feared that Mahomet will fail therein both because he attributed something to the old Testament and because he used Sergius as his fellow-Bishop in making the Alcoran whereas it was evident to the supreme Judge Lucifer for how could he be ignorant of that which himselfe had put into the Popes minde that Boniface had not only neglected but destroyed the policy of the State of Israel established in the old Testament when he prepared Popes a way to tread upon the necks of Princes but that he also abstained from al Example and Coadjutor when he took upon him that new name which Gregory himselfe a Pope neither very foolish nor overmodest ever abhord Besides that every day affords new Advocates to Boniface his side For since the Franciscans were almost worne out of whom their General Francis had seen 6000 Souldiers in one army that is in one Chapter which because they were then but fresh Souldiers he saw assisted with 18000 Devils the Iesuits have much recompenced those decaies and damages who sometimes have maintained in their Tents 200000 Schollers For though the Order of Benedict have ever been so fruitful that they say of it That all the new Orders which in latter times have broken out are but little springs or drops and that Order the Ocean which hath sent out 52 Popes 200 Cardinals 1600 Archbishops 4000 Bishops and 5000 Saints approved by the Church and therefore it cannot be denied but that Boniface his part is much relieved by that Order yet if they be compared to the Iesuits or to the weak and unperfect types of them the Franciscans it is no great matter that they have done Though therefore they esteem Mahomet worthy of the name of an Innovator and therein perchance not much inferior to Boniface yet since his time to ours almost all which have followed his Sâ—…t have lived barren in an 〈◊〉 and idle concord and cannot boast that they have produced any new matter whereas Boniface his Successors awakened by
commanded to work miracles at certain appointed days where their reliques are preserved do not now attend till the day come as they were accustomed but are awaked ten days sooner and constrained by him to come down from heaven to do that business But your inventions can scarce be called yours since before you Heraclides Ecphantus and Aristarchus thrust them into the world who notwithstanding content themselves with lower roomes amongst the other Philosophers and aspire not to this place reserved only for Antichristian Heroes neither do you agree so well amongst your selves as that you can be said to have made a Sect since as you have perverted and changed the order and Scheme of others so Tycho Brachy hath done by yours and others by his Let therefore this little Mathematician dread Emperour withdraw himself to his own com pany And if hereafter the Fathers of our Order can draw a Cathedrall Decree from the Pope by which it may be defined as a matter of Faith That the earth doth not move and an Anathema inflicted upon all which hold the contrary then perchance both the Pope which shall decree that and Copernicus his followers if they be Papists may have the dignity of this place Lucifer signified his assent and Copernicus without muttering a word was as quiet as he thinks the Sunne when he which stood next him entred into his place To whom Lucifer said And who are you He answered Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast of Hohenheim At this Lucifer trembled as if it were a new Exorcîsme and he thought it might well be the first verse of S. Iohn which is always imployed in Exorcismes and might now be taken out of the Welch or Irish Bibles But when he understood that it was but the web of his name he recollected himself and raising himself upright asked was he had to say to the great Emperour Sathan Lucifer Belzebub Leviathan Abaddon Paracelsus replyed It were an injury to thee O glorious Emperor if I should deliver before thee what I have done as though all those things had not proceeded from thee which seemed to have bin done by me thy organ and conduit yet since I shal rather be thy trumpet herein then mine own some things may be uttered by me Besides therefore that I brought all Methodicall Physicians and the Art it self into so much contempt that that kinde of Physick is almost lost this also was ever my principal purpose that no certain new Art nor fixed rules might be established but that all remedies might be dangerously drawn from my uncertain ragged and unperfect experiments in tryal whereof how many men have been made carkases And falling upon those times which did abound with paradoxicall and unusual diseases of all which the pox which then began to rage was almost the center and sink I ever professed an assured and an easie cure thereof lest I should deterr any from their licentiousness And whereas almost all poysons are so disposed and conditioned by nature that they offend some of the senses and so are easily discerned and avoided I brought it to pass that that treacherous quality of theirs might be removed and so they might safely be given without suspicion and yet perform their office as strongly All this I must confess I wrought by thy minerals and by thy fires but yet I cannot despair of my reward because I was thy first minister and instrument in these innovations By this time Ignatius had observed a tempest risen in Lucifers countenance for he was just of the same temper as Lucifer and therefore suffered with him in every thing and felt all his alterations That therefore he might deliver him from Paracelsus he said You must not think sir that you may here draw out an Oration to the proportion of your name It must be confessed that you attempted great matters and well becoming a great officer of Lucifer when you undertook not only to make a man in your Alimbecks but also to preserve him immortal And it cannot be doubted but that out of your Commentaries upon the Scriptures in which you were utterly ignorant many men have taken occasion of erring and thereby this kingdom much indebted to you But must you therefore have access to this secret place What have you compassed even in Physick it self of which we Iesuits are ignorant For though our Ribadenegra have reckoned none of our Order which hath written in â—…ysick yet how able and sufficient wee are in that faculty I will be tryed by that Pope who hath given a priviledge to Iesuits to practise Physick and to be present at Deaths-bed a which is denyed to other Orders for why should he deny us their bodies whose souls he delivered to us and since he hath transferd upon us the power to practise Physick he may justly be thought to have transferd upon us the art it self by the same Omnipotent Bull since he which grants the end is by our Rules of Law presumed to have granted all means necessary to that end Let me dread Emperour have leave to speak truth before thee These men abuse and profane too much thy mettals which are the bowels and treasure of thy Kingdom For what doth Physick profit thee Physick is a soft and womanish thing For since no medicine doth naturally draw blood that science is not fit nor worthy of our study Besides why should those things which belong to you be imployed to preserve from diseases or to procure long life were it not fitter that your Brother and Colleague the Bishop of Rome which governs upon the face of your earth and gives daily increase to your Kingdom should receive from you these helps and subsidies To him belongs all the gold to him all the precious stones conceald in your intrals wherby he might bait ensnare the Princes of the earth through their Lords and Councellours means to his obedience and to receive his commandments especially in these times when almost every where his antient rights and tributes are denyed unto him To him belongs your Iron and the ignobler mettals to make engines To him belongs your Minerals apt for poyson To him the Salt-peter and all the Elements of Gun-powder by which he may demolish and overthrow Kings and Kingdoms and Courts and seats of Justice Neither doth Paracelsus truly deserve the name of an Innovator whose doctrin Severiâ—…us and his other followers do referr to the most ancient times Think therefore your self well satisfied if you be admitted to govern in chief that Legion of Homicid Physicians and of Princes which shall be made away by poyson in the midst of their sins and of women tempting by paintings and face-Physick Of all which sorts great numbers will daily come hither out of your Academy Content with this sentence Paracelsus departed and Machiavel succeeded who having observed Ignatius his forwardness and sauciness and how uncald he had thrust himself into the office of Kings-Attorney thought this stupid patience of