the conjugal For so it seems by all the fables of the Poets which have raised this to admiration by variety of examples While the poor Penelope would have been but a solitary instance of Conjugal affection if the Vertuous Sir P. Sidney sensible of that defect had not once supplyed us with the story of Argalus and Parthenia And it seems in Nature that nothing can be greater then this Heroick flame for it is the first product of the excellency of strength both of soul and body When the blood is warm the spirits light and airy the humours soft and oyly when the phancy is luculent and most affected with the object of its brightness the reason ever agitated and the memory most tenacious of impressions Then the valiant youth is urg'd by nature to the uttermost knowing that youth is fleeting and once illuded conceiveth flames no more Wherefore here the incenseth him here the glories in his humbleness no less then in his bravery here she triumphs in variety of affections The mind is restless in devising how to take oblige and compass and the body as its instrument must acknowledge no weariness shrink at no danger omit no watching but hold it self still in the brightest armour as if it were to revel in the midst of a battel The eyes are scattered like wandring spirits the colour comes and goes in longing blushing and aspiring the lips tremble and the hands that took the boldness shake in the handling of the arms of love The lover strait becomes a prisoner to a labyrinth where he counts his bondage the sweetest liberty and to tread the maze more desireable then to find the clue If desire only as Des Cartes apprehendeth do comprise horror and agreement One of a sudden apprehension of miscarrying the other in a settled representation of enjoying somewhat most agreeable If doubts and fears be a tendency towards despair the wretched sciatica of the soul If hope it self be but an unquiet inmate in a lovers breast a vehement incendiary and grief do but dismally extinguish those flames Judge whether this love be not made of strong ingredients more than any other While desire ruleth the good is absent Absence of the object pines the faculty If hope relieve fear assayleth delay tormenteth disappointment driveth unto madness Longing stayeth and reduceth The sweetness of imagination dandleth and demulceth the eager spirits until that air be vented in a sigh and grief succeed to resuscitate the malignant humors Such storms are frequent in a lovers breast such change of weather such force of constellations what can there be in any other love that is not here Can we but laugh to hear a debauched gallant at last to sleight all woman-kind to mock at love as folly and in experience and to make only men to be objects to one another As if a fond fancy of some society or a proud conceit of worth and merit or in fine a sence of obligation which by bringing the obliged person into bondage through the tyranny of gratitude doth commonly undermine its own Empire with a faction of liberty since he that thinks himself more obliged to another then he can readily requite begins to hate him that hath a mortgage in him and to have a secret aversation to his person could be more available then Nature procurement which is a vertuous desire of conjunction between our sexes whilest in all motions the Natural are more strong then the moral and this then any other Natural A resolute or a valiant man cannot be by reason if he have it not in the firmness of his mold or constitution So as the soul is knit to the body it is able to act in it or above it or without it If it be weakly joyned it will be apt to serve If strongly it will make it suffer hunger or thirst or heat or cold or cast it headlong upon danger to attain its more heroick ends and this of love as its principal but heroick love cannot be but in a young and lively spirit chast and inviolable And then we may boldly say that there cannot be such affection between two parties of the same sex as between a pair of lovers because other love doth only tend to bring conveniences together but this to propagate its like the forciblest impulse and chief design of Nature to make two inclined Relations compleat in Union In a word to joyn bodies as well as soules and only so to make not as if it were another self but a real and entire combination of two in one If therefore one man can love another more then a woman either he that loves is no man or he that is beloved is an Hermophrodite or somewhat more inhumane But as this love which we value by its energy in innocence and chastity has as its noblest end the butt of wedlock so gold itself may be dear bought and a thing highly prised may sink of value fruition Who would undergoe what is necessary in love or honour if he knew the vanity of his ends Or serve an apprentiship if he knew that that should be the best of his time Suffer so much in Amorous wooing and in the remedy be worser ganched then in the malady For in marriage how early is society how ready is neglect how soon are other ends regarded and the nimia of love as much studied to be unlearned as ever conn'd before The servant practiseth now to become a Master of his wife a Father of his children a Prince or a Principal man in his country Honour Wealth and Providence do cut off all the superfluity of affection and leave little else but law to bind wedlock Whereas the Heroick love is ever longing never satisfied one desire answered or attained multiplies a thousand ever ardent and over-valuing never sleighting or remiss ever humble and obsequious never haughty or imperious ever single and solitary in its end and object never interessed or employed in any other but what may serve it In a word lives not in itself but in its love Much more of it might be said But its laws I once obey'd Therefore say no more at first 2. On the other side There is no Faith in married men some applauding it through sensuality others weary of it for want of vertuous usage Others seeming to contemn it because they have attained who were they widowed should indeed be close mourners and never rest till they had repaired it If it be the reward of noble services the best of all possessions the end and rest of all turmoiled passions We may rather blame the vanity of the World that can never answer expectation then to blast those flowers that are ready to bud and teem with the choicest fruits of life How incongruous is it to imagine that the thirst should be sweeter then the wine the hunger then the choicest fare Can Heroick love as it is accompanied with so many pangs and convulsions be its own reward Is
one courser by a single definition But the Huntsman first must appoint the grounds to us And they are thus ample 1. That Nature hath not been so much restrained unto any man as to allow him no good qualities A fool may be kind and charitable A slave obsequious and loving to his Master A deformed man ingenious Thersites did not want somewhat in him to recommend him to some mans phancy that could distinguish Neither Aesop nor the Priest whom the Queen descended to salute as he lay in sleeping Nay we see sometimes an ill-favour'd lout as he seems to others eyes to be graced with the bed and favour of a beauteous Lady whom likelier persons have sought and have been repulsed Not to speak of the most vicious whose evil parts may be but the corruptions of their excellent endowments misemployed the most contemptible have somewhat in them to bear them up against neglect A curr that is unprofitable hath exquisite wayes of fawning and insinuating with his Master to save his skin or fill his belly so that he may fare better than the Talbot As we likewise see an empty droll better feasted then a Grave Philosopher but they are not so much to be envyed for what they have as to be pityed for what they want 2. That Nature hath not given all good parts to any one man Onc ne furent a tous toutes graces don nées for if she had her prodigality upon that one would cause that all the rest that she hath bestowed on others should be in vain He while he were as a God amongst men would be insupportable in the World while all accumulation of honours and regards were devolv'd on him a general Ebbe would leave the other fishes to perish on the dry shoar and this Leviathan would scarce be covered in the middle of the waters But she hath rather so provided that somewhat there should be in one to recompence the defect of another and somewhat elsewhere to counter-balance men that are excellent that the World might not be too narrow to contain them 3. That a crooked maimed or infirm body are to be allowed for their imperfections in so many grains extraordinary whatsoever vertue you require in them for whatever noble instincts may be in them the soul cannot act without its organs but when it is about to issue it is distorted They cannot choose but be affected as they â—el within themselves when they are about to shew their courtesy somewhat indiscernable may pain and incommode them as an aking tooth may interrupt one if it be no more in the midst of his discourse and then if you wonder to see the debonnaire on a suddain to become tachy and unsociable while he perceives and strives to correct it he may falter upon some other passion or disease and make it worse by his endeavour of amending To these it may be some fair quality may want a seat of action or the faculty be sunk in the rubbish and ruine of a member 4. That there are divers other affections of the body that 〈◊〉 an influence upon the soul. A ean one preyeth on the sweet and oyly humours and so consumes the fewel of its own contentment A little body is soon agitated as if the spirits wanted room to expatiate and 't is receiv'd almost among the vulgar that little heads are testy But if there be excess of dimensions it makes the whole unactive and the parts unwieldy Besides though you see nothing but a body well-disposed the parts within may be inordinate The veins and arteries may be strait and subject to obstructions so that transpiration is not free nor the course of the bloud and spirits open to the extremities of the body whereby it cannot feel its self in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or good estate and habit of complexion Neither is it possible for some to obtain so good a temper who are born with evi humours as we bring with us for the most part some familiar maladies like evil Geniuses attending on us all our life Either thin and fluid humors or gross and tough or fair and fiery spirits or sharp and subtle as if they were the rennet of Cold and melancholy 5. Lastly That therefore the agreement of body and mind must be considered and then the field may be discreetly beaten for our prise There is a kind of Physiognomy that discovers a good Nature wherein any ordinary man may have some insight The beggar spyeth where to be importunate The cheat where to follow The hector where to brave or to beware 〈◊〉 Courtier where to allure but some aspects there are agreeable unto every one liking where none conceiveth a suddain prejudice or hateth at the first sight or envyeth their good estate or affecteth to do them any hurt for their owe sakes but findeth that humanity in them which all the World respecteth Such is that most part that presenteth a clear and even skin a ruddy countenance a constitution full and sound that is neither apt to thrive not abate and a mine of air and behaviour neither flow nor vehement but strong and sweet and such as sheweth a promptness to intension and remission as occasion serveth A body free from uneven parts especially uneven eye-brows prominent lips or an eminent Romane nose If any other parts be unequal one cannot therefore exclude that party from having any good parts within him but we cannot lightly take him for the copy of our Character But there is nothing more regardable than the habit of the eyes which if they bear that full and steddy look that importeth Confidence and admit those repercussions that enkindle bashfulness and emit those casts and glances that are significant of gentle passions they do undoubtedly evince the tokens of a likely person § II. But to leave it unto women to be pleased in the outside of a man and to allow them what they affect in this case to be the competenter Judges Let us pass to the habits of the mind and then to be sure whatsoever we discover to be good in one is good in another and indifferent to both our Sexes I take it once for granted that a Good Nature enjoyes a constant sweetness within it self while it is endued abundantly with a free course of blood and spirits circling in its breast and filling it with love of life both in it self and others and delighting most in interchanging of vivacity 1. And first That it doth not owe its cheerfulness to any foreign cause but only to its native vigour and source of anhelation And whom doth it not revive to see alacrity in another without apparent cause Especially when there is no insolence or affected motion to be discovered Who would not wish and earn for such an acquaintance and think himself happy to have a part in one that is indeed happy of himself To see his action observe his countenance note the harmony of his heart and tongue and hear
the melody of his speech and tone while every acent is a strain of birds or Angels And yet the cause is not so abstruse the ebullition of fresh and airy spirits gently moves the bloud and excites the sweeter humours of the body such as love and joy flow upon and yeild no place to a syncope or intercision of the soul such as grief and sorrow do inflict by the sharper humours that they prepare and empty from the Gall and other vessels ordain'd to sever them Besides that innocency is a constant guard upon the blandishments of the mind and affords security to all the thoughts to play with their simplicity For bitter passions seldom come till we begin to trade with fortune and taint our apprehensions with things preter-natural Not as if a Good Nature were beyond the reach of fortune for the fair are commonly said to be unfortunate A Brother or a Lover may be snatch't away or his time may travel over barren ground and make wast in his progress But abstinence and contentment are not difficult to a mind not debauch't with Luxury since Nature is contented with a little and it is more natural to such a temper to take delight in the good that is present then to wreek for that which is absent peradventure more than wanting but its power were not to be seen were there nothing to oppress it Marcet sine adversario virtus The breathing of a spring will bear a light thing above the water if it be stifled with earth and rubbish in time 't will wear them quite away or else it will rise again in another Cistern of its own inventing The Palm-tree shooteth up with the more vigour having weights hang'd upon it And the pressed Camomill yields with a modest fragrancy but as soon as the chastening Roller is gone beyond it it rears itself again to court the air and dew that cherish it so a Good Nature is not toiled with adversity or changed without subversion But so it liveth with its self 2. Next let us see how it delights it self in the life of others which we may take some pleasure to observe in the vanity of little children Whereas you may observe some as soon as they can express the primer copy of their reasons to be craving many things making little difference of the hand or the party so they be but gratified because their delight is more in divers toyes than in their play-fellows or in their dayly servants that attend to humour them you shall note some other better natured that take no joy but in their companions that will not eat nor drink nor by their good will sleep without them That will not be pleas'd with any thing when they rise again without restoring them to their wonted pastime and their known Associates The same rejoyce in getting more acquaintance and making more friends to play with them but yet they will not endure to be with strangers without the company of some they know because they distinguish of whom they know and of whom they love not through averseness unto any but only of imbecility when they find themselves denuded of their proper Aids and Relyances For the same Nature with the benefit of experience leads them on to an Universal Humanity And it seems that Humane Nature is rather to be learned by observing the respective characters of growing years then by forming notions out of their Maturest actions which it is most likely are accommodated unto fortune or necessity Neither is it wonder if these have still impell'd mankind to an Uniform mode or way of contending about the Partition of conveniences among men but it would be wonder to see a child by Nature so Pugnacious that without any provocation it should still be fighting I am more inclinable to think with Sir P. Sidney that man is a Good Natur'd creature till he is injured Neither do I think that every man could wish a great destruction that he himself might come to desolate possessions But of this only en passant I dare not enter into an argument at the porch of which stat magni nominis umbra § III. To proceed from these two principles that I suppose I infer as necessary consequents 1. That a Good Nature is void of pride and ambition 2. Void of interest and design 1. While it readily cleaves to what it likes more or less as it finds agreeableness it is not averse to any other much less is it apt to hate any seeing somewhat good in every one so that though it do decline some qualities that are in persons and some persons for those qualities yet it doth not hate them or despise them Whereas all pride is founded in a secret malice The degrees of pride are two The first self-conceitedness whereby one esteems himself better then another The second is ambition whereby one seeks in act to put a distance or to make a difference betwixt himself and those that he despiseth which do both necessarily induce hatred inasmuch as the proud conceiveth that those whom he despiseth would oppose him and arrogate as much unto themselves as he doth to himself if it lay in their power and therefore he doth either in act or intention seek to depress them Now as generous wines when they retract their spirits to the Center of the vessel do become eager in the extremities so it happens to men of spirit when they retire into themselves by self-conceitedness they become unsociable in other parts and are only pleasant to their intimates being such as serve to elate them more while they vainly nourish a caprice of grandeur with restraint of generosity But if their humour carry them abroad to make it self observed it brings a restraint upon the publick imposeth upon others abridgeth liberty raiseth expectation and meeteth at the last with such contempt and hatred from other men as they themselves have fostered Or if fortune favour their ambition and bring the world about to their bent so far as they have to do in it yet it cannot blot out the indelible characters of their usurpation or the tokens that they must leave behind of their injustice If Caesar were the Tamer of the World he was the overthrower of his Countrey And so before was Marius so was Sylla nor was more to have been suspected from L. Catiline But the like success doth not happen to one of a thousand not in meaner enterprises And what at length is sought by attempting When Pyrrhus King of Epire prepared to pass into Italy Cyneas a Councellor in esteem with him demands to what end he made that great preparation Said he to make my self Master of Italy And what replies Cyneas after that I will pass saith he into Gaule and into Spain And what farther I will go to conquer Africk and at last when I have brought the world into my subjection I will live at ease and take my content And I pray Sir rejoyneth Cyneas
token of commencement where it happens at the first encounter of such an happy pair of lovers So that this must be imagined to be somewhat rare and extraordinary it being not only hard to find such a second self in whose bosom we may have equal confidence as in our own in whose help the same assurance who can have the same delight in our affection that he hath in loving of himself and in our embraces the same satisfaction that he hath in cherishing of his own soul and body and who can be equally concerned in our welfare and his own but also to find a first who can love as much as may deserve such requital Let every one try how he finds it in himself how he feels his pulse beating towards it or his heart panting to escape from him into another breast This noble affection fals not on vulgar and common constitutions but on such as are mark't for vertue he that can love his friend with this noble ardour will in a competent degree affect all I begin with this sentence since it comes into my mind That it is but ordinary for some men to have sometimes a pheere or concubine as Mahomet the great who after sacrificed her with his own hand to his pride and tyranny that takes up all their time and pleasure Others a Privado or only favourite the solitary object of their fancy and delight as our Edward II was accounted to have in Piers Gaveston which was reputed too an effeminate impotency and enthralment of his mind An affection springing out of weakness and insufficiency and only tending to ease and pleasure When a man is captivated with a man as if he were enamoured of a woman while his time his business his honour is distracted while a senseless humour is only gratified and he that is beloved for the most part knoweth how to make other use of it then his lover A thing so fatal notwithstanding to that unhappy Prince that when sedition and rebellion had removed one he could not live without the raising of another in the person of the Lord Spencer whom the other Lords finding to draw all the Kings heart one way they never left till they had ungraciously procured both their ruines So we see in common instances who are fond of one neglect all others which breeds contempt and hatred for who are despised despise again and who think they ought to have an interest in one that is transported where they have it not do envy the transporter and cannot well refrain from some attempt upon him In vices it is most common to have one seducer who gains a power upon his ward We must not therefore measure this affection by intension much less by excess or intemperance but by adaequation of the object vertue of the persons and regularity of the Acts. Let us therefore hear my Lord of Montaigne's report instead of many other of his singular Amity with Monsicur de la Boitic which indeed he hath propounded to us though of himself as a rare example Which he affirmeth to have been such that certainly the like was not be read of and that amongst us men there is no track of it to be found in use That there needeth so much happiness of rencounter to raise such another that it is much if fortune do afford the like once in three ages They were first known to one another by report they sought one anothers acquaintance they found it by chance at a feast and became forthwith so taken so known and so obliged betwixt themselves that presently nothing became so intimate as the one to the other That it was not one special consideration nor two nor three nor four nor a thousand It was he knew not what quintessence of all which having seised his whole will brought it to be plunged and lost in his friends and his again in like manner with a pareil longing and concurrence in his own not reserving any thing that was proper to either of them nothing that was his or mine That such a friendship abolisheth all words of difference benefit obligation acknowledgement request remerciment or the like all in effect being common between them their wills thoughts judgements goods wives children honour and life and their agreement to be but one soul in two bodies And such a friendship he affirms to be discussive at all other obligations incompatible with any other friendship Though his life had been sweetly passed to the time of his writing without any other great affliction then the loss of his friend yet if he compare the whole to those four years wherein he enjoyed him that all the rest was but smoak or a dark and a tedious night to him In fine that thereafter he abandoned all pleasure since his Participant was gone since all the comforts in the world did but redouble to him the regret of his loss thus far that noble Humanist Let us yet hear another refined spirit of our own Nation I confess saith he I do not observe that order that the Schools ordain our affections to love our Parents wives children and then our friends For excepting the injunctions of religion I do not find in my self such a necessary and indissoluble sympathy to all those of my bloud I hope I do not break the fifth Commandment if I conceive I may love my friend before the nearest of my bloud even those to whom I owe the principles of life I never yet cast a true affection on a woman but I have loved my friend as I do vertue my soul my God There are wonders in true affection it is a body of Enigmaes mysteries and riddles wherein two so become one as they both become two I love my friend before my self and yet methinks I do not love him enough some few moneths hence my multiplyed affection will make me believe I have not loved him at all when I am from him I am dead till I be with him when I am with him I am not satisfied but would still be nearer him united souls are not satisfied with embraces but desire to be truly each other which being impossible their desires are infinite and must proceed without a possibility of satisfaction If we can bring our affections to look beyond the body and cast an eye upon the soul we have found out the true object not only of friendship but charity c. I am ashamed of transcribing their sense and eloquence hath imported me And yet I have maimed both by the culling But 't is more to my purpose then mine own What shall we say to all this If it were but wit or generosity pity to be wrack't or chopt with Logick but these are no ventets of smoak or chass If there be such an Amity what shall I think of my self if not what of these excellent persons that have dilivered it We must suffer such souls to have suffered somewhat extraordinary Therefore I am still either