A Curtain Lecture.  

When Wives, preach 'tis not in the Husbands, power  
To have their Lectures end within an hour:  
If He with patience stay till she have done,  
she'll not conclude till 〈…〉     

A CURTAIN LECTURE: As it is read 

By a Country Farmer's wife to her Good man.  
By a Country Gentlewoman or Lady to her Esquire or Knight.  
By a Soldier's wife to her Captain or Lieutenant.  
By a Citizens or Tradesman's wife to her husband.  
By a Court Lady to her Lord.   Concluding with an imitable Lecture read by a Queen to her Sovereign Lord and King.  
LONDON, Printed by ROBERT YOUNG for john Aston, 1637.   

To the generous Reader, but especially to Bachelors and Virgins.  
THis Age affording more Poets than Patrons (for nine Muses may travel long ere they can find one Maecenas) made me at a stand to whom I might commend the dedication of this small Tractate, especially bearing this Title. To any Matron I durst not, though never so modest; lest her conscience might allege unto her she had been guilty of reading the like Lectures. To a Married man I feared to do it, lest having been often terrified with his Curtain clamours, I might rather add to his affliction, than insinuate into his affection. Therefore to you, O single Bachelors, and singular Virgins, I recommend both the patronage and perusal of these papers; and the rather, because in you it can neither breed distrust, nor beget distaste; the Maids not coming yet to read, nor the Young men to be Auditors. But howsoever I proclaim this work free from all offence, either to the single, or the double. Marriage is honourable, and therefore I say unto thee, Marry: fear nothing, Audaces fortuna juvat: for it may be suspected, if there were fewer Bachelors there would be more honest wives; therefore I say again, Marry at all adventure. If thou hast children, think them thine own, though they be not: thou art sure to have a wife of thine own, though the issue be another man's. Be valiant, fear not words, they are but wind, and you live at land, and not at sea: with which admonishment, and encouragement withal, I bid you generously farewell.  
T. H.   

The Contents of the book comprised in these following Chapters.  
CHAP. I. RAre things in women. Nature teacheth them modesty. Of those that inveigh against their sex. Many illustrious women remembered as precedents for others to imitate. 
Fol. 1  CHAP. II. Of Virginity, and the excellency thereof. The punishment of the incestuous Vestals. How chastity was honoured amongst the ancient Spartans'. How far Virgins may extend their words, writing, or gestures. 
24  CHAP. III. Encouragement to young Virgins and Damosels to behave themselves well in their single estate, that they may become eminent Wives and Matrons, by the example of others drawn from div●rs selected histories. 
48  CHAP. IV. Of election or choice before marri●age. The conveniences and inconveniences belonging unto marriage disputed, and compared with the honour and dignity thereof. 
72  CHAP. V. How Parents ought to dispose of their Daughters The miseries of enforced contracts. The manner of marriage amongst the Romans, the ancient Britan's, the Gauls, the Germans, etc. 
96  CHAP. VI How marriage is solemnised amongst the Russians, the Gauls, the Assyrians, the greeks, the Namasanes, the Scots, etc. The honour of marriage, and of twelve impediments that may hinder it. 
119.  CHAP. VII. What manner of Lectures wives in the Country read to their husbands. The several dispositions of wives, and humours of husbands, illustrated by diverse selected histories. The morosity of the marriage bed. 
114  CHAP. VIII. The love that ought to be betwixt man and wife. A reason given why women speak more and much louder than men. Of a simple married woman. Divers other histories of pleasant passages in the Country. 
170  CHAP. IX. How Curtain Lectures are read in the City, and how severally read by sundry Tradesmen's wives, with variety of delightful histories to that purpose. 
192  CHAP. X. Pleasant discourse betwixt a Noble man and a Merchant. Lectures read by Country Gentlewomen and Ladies to their Esquire● and Knights. By the Soldier's wife to her Captain or Lieutenant. And of Court Ladies to their Lords. 
218  CHAP. XI. Twelve things that have been the Authors of much mischief. Of the famous and notorious scold Xantippe, the wife of Socrates. And of a Curtain Lecture read by a Queen to her husband, worthy all good and virtuous women's imitation. 
241   
FINIS.   

A CURTAIN LECTURE.  
CHAP. I.  
Rare things in women. Nature teacheth them modesty. Of those that inveigh against their sex. Many illustrious women remembered as precedents for others to imitate.  
IT was the opinion of Pythagoras that a serpent is engendered from the marrow in the back bone of a man deceased, and cast into the fields without burial: upon which it is observed, that as the fall and death of man came by the serpent, so the life of the serpent comes by the death of man. And since the first back-sliding of Adam there hath been such an antipathy betwixt the seed of the woman and the serpent, that if the naked sole of her foot shall tread upon his head, though never so lightly, yet the weight thereof is more ponderous and fatal unto him, than if he were beaten with mallets, or a rock or mountain should precipitate itself upon him; for with her bare touch he instantly expireth. But if he shall but bite the heel of a man (for at that still is his aim) the poison disperseth itself through all the parts of his body, from which proceedeth speedy and inevitable death.  
A second thing worthy remark is, to consider how provident nature hath been to teach women bashfulness and modesty in their lives, by concealing their immodest parts after their deaths: for it is familiar amongst us, that if a man be drowned, his gallis no sooner burst, but he riseth with his face upward: but if a woman perish in the water, she swims with her face downward: of which some give this reason, Omne leve fertur sursum, etc. As every light thing naturally ascends up into the air, and that which is weighty stoopeth itself down to the earth; so a man being broad and heavy in the shoulders, and but thin and light in the breasts, the more ponderous parts sink, and those less heavy appear above the waters: when on the contrary, a woman being narrow and spare shouldered, but more fleshy and tumerous in the breast, by the weight thereof they smother and obscure her modest cheeks in the water, as if even in death she apprehended that the rest were unseemly to be exposed unto the air.  
But in this my progress intended to the praise of their much honoured sex, I encountered with many difficulties and interposures able to deter me from my purpose; for in turning over the leaves of some both modern and foreign writers, I have met with so many satirical invectives aimed directly against it, and some of them so pathetically bitter, that I am half persuaded they had quite forgot themselves to have been borne of mothers. Mantuan in one of his Eclogues writes thus: Foemineum servile genus, etc. which in my thoughts, in the generality is so adverse to all charity, and refractory to common experience, that I am loath to make it vulgar, or teach it to speak our English language. Plautus in Milite saith, What thing can be worse or more audacious than a woman? And in Bacchid. Nothing is more tempting or contagious to the life of a young man, than the opportunity of night, the operation of wine, and the blandishments of a woman. Ovid in his fi●st book of Elegies, though not in the same words, yet includes the same sense: and these, with many other, he reckoneth, not as accidents appertaining to some, but adherents belonging to all; as borne with them in their infancy, increasing with them in their growth, and inseparable from them till their last dissolution: others for diverse irregularities task them in particular. Ovid tells us there is no heed or regard to be taken of their tears, as commanding them at their will, and exposing them at their pleasure. 
Neve puellarum lacrymi● moveare caveto, etc.  
With women's tears be not thou moved at all,  
For as they please they keep or let them fall.  And in another place: 
What cannot Art? They to deceive poor men  
Have learned by practice how to weep, and when.   
Elsewhere he inveigheth against their fantastical habits, paintings, borrowed or bought hair, etc. Some call them unfaithful, light, inconstant, as Catullus: others more movable than the winds, as Calphurnius: some hold their society merely unnecessary, as that an house or family is much better and more quiet without them. Plautus saith, Mulier rectè olet cum nil olet, a woman is then at the best when sh● is not at all. Again, a question being asked whether it were better to marry with a maid or a widow? Answer is returned, Malum quod minimum est, id minimum est malum. He that can avoid their fellowship, let him shun it; let him beware the day before, that he repent him not the day after. Of their frowardness and perverseness Terence admonisheth us, saying most truly & essentially, I am acquainted with the wits and dispositions of women; they will not when thou wouldst, and when thou wouldst not, than they will. Of their wrangling and litigiousness juvenal thus speaketh: 

Nulla ferè causa est in quam non foemina litem, etc.   

There is no cause in Court, nor act in State,  
From which a woman cannot ground debate.   And to that purpose he introduceth one Manilia, a boldfaced Roman Matron, who being full of controversy, and through her wrangling having many suits in agitation, blushed not in open Court to be her own Advocate, and plead her own causes in public assemblies. They are further challenged to effacinate the hearts and spirits of the most valiant, to tame even the Giant tamers; neither their manly courage nor invincible puissance being ●ble to resist their whorish seducements: for so saith Seneca in Hercule furente.  
Many more to this purpose I could produce in priorem partem, but I am afraid lest these few may (to some) appear too many. I● therefore follows that these discouragements passed over, I come now to emboldening and animation; which I shall better illustrate by precedent and example. For, as Epicuru● saith, more faith is to be given to example than precept. A●d Seneca in his Epistles saith▪ long is the journey that is taken by precept, but short and speedy that which is proposed by example. Omphulus in his book De imitatione thus discourseth:  
The greatest commendation both of ingenuous arts and civil actions is comprised within the limits of imitation: the study of which, either in managing public or private affairs, begetteth in us both an alacrity and magnitude. For by calling to remembrance the famous and notable acts of illustrious persons, and conforming ourselves unto all such things as were in them worthy both of observation and imitation, it inflames us with a noble desire, and an exurgent ambition, by their precedent and example to aspire unto that celsitude of honour and renown▪ to which they arrived before us. This counsel I therefore purpose to follow: and, beginning with those created in the beginning, d●aw a precedent of good women, even to these our later ages.  
Adam and Evah were our first parents; and he who gave names to all the creatures of the earth, called her Hevah, which implies, the mother of mankind; from whom are descended even those degenerates that so maliciously calumnizethe sex: just like the young Ass colts, who having sucked their fills, kick their dams; for so it was said of Aristotle for spurning at his master Plato, from whom he had sucked and drawn all his rudiments of Philosophy.  
But as there was an Evah by whom sin came into the world, to the utter subversion of the soul of man; so likewise there was a Mar●e, the pure, blessed, and immaculate Virgin, through whom was repaired and restored what in the other was forfeited and lost. To fetch our imitable women as far as from the time of the first Patriarches: Abraham had a Sarah, and Isaac a Rebecca. Come to the Judges: Lapidoth had a Deborah, who was a Prophetess, and a deliverer of I●rael. We read that joachim had a Susanna, and that churlish Nabal had a liberal minded Abigail; and of Manasses widow judith, who taking upon her a masculine spirit, Virago-like cut off the head of Holophernes.  
Come to the national Kings: Ulysses had a constant Penelope in Greece, and King Priam was the husband of a fertile Hecuba in Asia. Amongst the Romans julius Caesar, the first perpetual D●ctatour, had an indulgent Calphurnia; and Augustus his Successor a Matron-like Livia. In the time of the Consuls, Collatine might boast of an unlimitable Lucrece; and the first Africanus of a Tertia Aemilia, for her virtues scarce to be paralleled. Strabo tells us of an Arte●isia, Queen of Caria, the illustrious wife of King Mausolus; and Livy, Frontinus, and others, of an excellent Chiomara, the wife of Origiant●s Regulus.  
Come to the ancient and grave Philosophers: Plato had his Astionissa, and Aristotle his Hermia; the famous Physician Nicostratus, his Antecyra; Periander, one of the seven Sages of Greece (as Pythenetus Lib. de Aegina relates) was enamoured on the virtuous Melissa; and the grave Socrates (as Xenophon makes mention of him) was devoted to the love of Theodota; and the famous Marcus Cicero to his Terentia, etc.  
If we examine the ancient Poets, not one of them but had a Mistress whom to celebrate. Amongst the Romans, Tibullus had his Delia, Lucan his Argentaria, Horace his Lycinia, Terence his Leucadia, Propertius his Hostia, Cornelius Gallus his Lycoris, and so of the rest.  
Amongst the Italians, Dantes had his Beatrix, Petrarch his Aureta, etc. And amongst the Spanish Poets, Crespi Valladaura, Sezephia Centella, Guid● Cavalcante, Almudavar, Bonavida, Lopez del Vigo, with infinite others, all eminent Poets: and not one of them, whose pen was not employed in the laborious encomiasticke of some excellent Lady or other.  
The like I may say of the Germans, as johannes Gulielmus Rosbachius, Mathias Baderus, Lambertu● Ludolphus, Frenzekius, Franciscus Modius, Bebel●lius, etc. Amongst th● French, Marrot, and others. And of our English, I will only, at this time, memorise two; famous Mr. Edmund Spencer, magnified in his Gloriana; and the most renowned Sr. Philip Sidney, never to be forgotten in his Pamela and Philoclea.  
Nay, none of these Satirists against women, but with easy examination, I could bring their own works to witness against themselves; but more needful occurrents take me off from them: I will therefore leave them to their contradictions, with that of Terentius, in the Prologue to his first Comedy called Andraea: 
— ut quiescant porro moneo, & desinant  
Maledicere, malefacta ne noscant sua.  
I warn them their ill speeches to forbear,  
Lest of their own ill deeds they further hear.  For it is the fashion of many to pry, and seek to have a deep inspection to the actions and behaviours of others, whilst they are merely careless and negligent in managing of their own manners and deportment: which Horace ingeniously observes, and with which I conclude this Chapter: 

— Egomet mi ignosco Maevius inquit,  
Stultus & improbus hic amor est, dignusque notari.   

Maevius doth say, Myself on myself dote;  
But foolish is this love, and worthy note.  
When purblind thou, thine own cheeks canst not see,  
Why dost thou look so fixed on him or me?  
For now thine eyes so nimble sighted are,  
The Eagle or the Serpent to outstare.     

CHAP. II.  
Of virgintie, and the excellency thereof. The punishment of the incestuous Vestals. How chastity was honoured amongst the ancient Spartans'. How far virgins may extend their words, writings, or gestures.  
BEfore I come to dissect, or take upon me to anatomize the conditions o●●wives, it lieth in my road● way to speak something of virgins; for all women were first maids before they came to be married. One saith of women in general, that they are wonders in nature, if they would not wrong nature. And another, that they be admirable Angels, if they would not be drawn with Angels to become Devils. And of virgins thus: If they be fair, they are to be won with praises: and if coy, with prayers: if they be proud, with gifts: if covetous, with promises. And as it is natural in them to despise what is offered, so it is death to them to be denied what they demand. Some compare their hearts to the Cotton tree, whose fruit in the bud is as hard as a bullet of iron, but being ripe, it bringeth forth nothing but soft wool. But give me leave a little to deviate, and leave them for a page or two, to speak something of the excellency of virginity itself.  
Pope Gregory hath these words; Quanquàm laudationem virginitatis non suscepi, expressionem tamen, etc. Though I have not undertook to give virginity the due praise, yet I will afford it some expression▪ and first show you in what country she was bred, and by what parent begot. If that be our country where our dwelling is, then is Heaven the mansion of chastity. It hath here a pilgrimage, there a permanence. For what is virginal chastity, but an integrity void of all contagion? And whom can we call the father thereof, but the immaculate Son of God, whose flesh saw no corruption, and whose Divinity was not sensible of putrefaction? How great then is the honour of virginity, when our blessed Saviour, a virgin, came of a virgin? A virgin the Mother, a virgin the Son, begot of his Father before all worlds, borne of his Mother in the world; the first proceeding from his eternal goodness, that the second might be conducible to our everlasting glory. So likewise the holy Mother Church, his Spouse, is immaculate in her conception, and yet fruitful in her issue, a Virgin in her chastity, a Mother in her children: being a virgin she generateth us, not by the aid of the flesh▪ but by the assistance of the Spirit; not with the throws and pains of the womb, but by the joys of Angels: she gives us suck, not with the milk of the breast, but the doctrine of the Apostles. A virgin is the daughter of Zion, a virgin is the new Jerusalem, into which no flesh can enter that is common or unclean.  
Note but how far the name and virtue of virginity ex●endeth: for though amongst those that be married, the title and honour seems to be lost, yet ought we to know that every chaste soul, which abstaineth from things unlawful and forbidden, keepeth it still. For the Church, which consisteth of young and old, male and female, married and unmarried, every member thereof is honoured with that sacred title, Virgin.  
For many causes (saith johannes Episcopus) did the Saviour of the world choose to be borne of a wife espoused to an husband: first, to take away all aspersions that might be alleged against her by the Jews, who urging the strength of the Law, would have stoned her, being the punishment imposed upon an a●dulteresse: next, to prevent all occasions from immodest virgins, lest they should listen unto any false suspicious rumours, by which our blessed Saviour might be injured or defamed: that in going and returning from Egypt, she might have the company and comfort of her husband joseph, not a protector only, but a witness of her continued virginity; as also to beguile the Devil, the open adversary of all mankind, who by reason of her marriage, might be in some hesitation and doubt whether she were a virgin, and therefore grow diffident whether our blessed Saviour were the Son of God, or no.  
Pope Leo, Parturiente Maria, natus est nobis Dei filius, etc. Mary being delivered, or bringing forth, to us and for us was borne the Son of God; borne of an untouched woman, that his humane birth might assure us that he was perfect man, and her immaculate virginity confirm to us, that he was perfect God; of whom Maxinus Episcopus to this purpose testates.  
Though when he was borne, earthly swathings contained him, yet that he was not of earth, heavenly signs witnessed of him. Whilst he lay in the cradle, he shined in the clouds; he cried as an infant amidst the Jews, he reigned as an Emperor amongst the Gentiles: whilst he sucked amongst the Bethlemites, he was a worshipped● and adored by the Chaldeans; when he was visited by Shepherds, he was honoured by Kings; when he was obscure in the stable, he was visible amidst the stars. He was poor in habit amongst the Jews, he appeared in glory amidst the Gentiles.  
Therefore (saith a learned Father) let all virgins rejoice, for Mary the blessed virgin hath brought forth; let all widows be glad, for Anna the widow acknowledged Christ in his infancy; let all wives exult, for when Mary came to visit Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, the babe sprang in her womb; let all children give praise, for jesus himself hath vouchsafed to become a child; let all old men give thanks unto the Lord, for old Simeon did not depart the world, till his bodily eyes had seen his spiritual salvation: and this shall suffice for a sheet-discourse, concerning the honour and virtue of (neve● too much to be praised) virginity.  
The Romans so honoured chastity, that such of the Vestal virgins, as were known to violate their strict vows of virginity, were called incestuous (which word comes of Caestus, a virginal girdle, never untied but on the night succeeding the day of marriage): and being convicted of the fact, their judgement was to be buried alive. They were Votar●sses, sacred to the Goddess Vesta, which implies as much as Earth; for Vesta and Earth are all one: as Ovid Faster. lib. 6. with great elegancy delivereth it in these words: 
— Ne viva defodietur Humo:  
Sic incesta perit; quia quam violavit, in illa  
Conditur: & tellus Vestaque Numen idem est.  
No Vestal Priest, to break her vow be said,  
Lest she (yet living) in her tomb be laid:  
The injured Earth, th'Incestuous must devour,  
Because the Earth and Vesta are one power.  Moreover, their persons were had in such reverence, that the people gave them almost divine adorations, and the Senators and Princes at meeting gave them way.  
Amongst the Laws that Lycurgus made, one was, that no virgin, of what estate or condition soever, should have any dowry allotted her to her marriage: and being demanded the reason thereof, he made answer; lest those that be rich should be desired for their wealth, or those that want be despised for their poverty: so that by marriage, the Maid and not her means, beauty & virtue would be acquired solely. He also appointed at what years either sex should marry, which was at a mature age▪ that from able bodies might be propagated the stronger issue. Neither would he suffer them to bed together the marriage night, unless by stealth, but to keep the Bridegroom and the Bride (if it were possible) many nights asunder, by conference and company: and being asked the cause thereof, he made answer, Because they should still prevent satiety, keep thei● bodies strong and in health▪ which would preserve their love fresh and new, prevent distaste, and continue indulgence.  
Unguents and tinctures he banished the City, imposing mulcts and fines on all those who were found to use them: and in his days, such was the rare modesty both of their virgins and matrons, as that adultery was so little practised, that the name thereof was not known amongst them. For Plutarch in Lacon. Apotheg. reports, that a stranger ask one Geradata, a matron of the old Spartan race, what punishment their Laws inflicted upon adulterers? She made answer, Lycurgus had made none, for there was no such monster to be found amongst them. But he replying: but say any such should be, how then? Why then (saith she) he must be fined to give a Bull with so long and large a neck, that shall stretch over the mount Taygetus, and drink of the river Eurota. Which hearing, he said, that was a thing impossible. As impossible a thing (said she)▪ it is in Sparta to find an adulterer or adulteress.  
Now whether it be lawful or comely for a Vestal, or professed virgin, or any other, in her single and uncontracted estate, to be pleasant in looks, free in language, wanton in carriage, to poetize, or the like, (howsoever she be of modest and chaste condition) may be any just taxation of her continence, it is a question disputable. Seneca in his controversies, speaketh of a Vestal virgin, who but for writing this verse, Felice's nuptae, moriar nisi nubere dulce est. was summoned into open Court, and pleaded against in these or the like words: Felice's nuptae, i. happy are those which be married. These be the words of one that longs for marriage, which the Vestals ought not to do. And Moriar▪ i. may I die but: in whic● she prefers humour before honour, and lewdness before life. Nubere dulce est sweet it is to marry: whic● implies she is either raptured with the thought o● what she hath already proved, or ecstasied with th● conceit of that she hath no● yet tri●d: neither of whic● pollutions ought to be 〈◊〉 one of her profession. Sha● the magistrates submit th● maces? the Tribunes the types of renown? Sha● the Consuls and Praetors Dictator's and Flamens, gius way to her in the Forum? Shall any one of her contagious humours be held capable of such canonical honour? The Vestal Priests protest seldom, or (if at all) by the Goddess Vesta: but Let me die: Doth not this show that Vesta's living fires are now quite extinct and dead in her? Let me die but: In these words proclaims she not that she prefers the spotted bed of the married before the undefiled alt●r of the Goddess? whom I invoke to be as rigorous in punishing, as she hath been rebellious in provoking her. Beseems it a Recluse to become so rude? or a Votaress to show herself so full of vanity? What, a Virgin to versify? Shall that hand▪ only reserved to offer 〈◊〉 the Temple, now be officious in penning nothing bu●trifles? Or if she have a mind to write in praise o● marriage, why makes she not chaste Lucrece her Theme, and her imitable death her Argument? O thou worthy of all sever● punishment, that holdely any thing dearer to thee than thine own sacred Priesthood! But to marrie● thou sayest it is pleasant, it is sweet. How expressly uttered, how intimately concealed! as impudently proclaimed, as incontinently apprehended. Being one that undoubtedly having done the act, now most undecently seems to delight in the ill. Nay such a one as may be truly called Incesta, who though she never did the deed, yet in her heart hath desired it.  
This was (I must confess) enforced to the full: but in stead of playing the Advocate, and showing what answer she might make for herself, I will break off with this gentle admonition: If one facetious line, wri● (perhaps) rather to show her wit than any wantonness, and that any charitable censurer might rathe● impute it to fancy tha● folly, might be so traduc● and far stretched, as no● only to blemish the fame, but take away the life of so respected and reverend a person as a Vestal; how chary ought all Virgins to be? how careful and cautelous in all their deport●ments? to be wary in the● words, and weighty in their writings, that their countenances bewray no lightness, their eyes no looseness: that their carriages be not complemental, but courteous: their gestures not gross, but gracious: their language fashionable, not frivolous: And to the name of Virgin still remember to add that best becoming attribute and character, Virtue. Observing these and the like, there is no doubt but as in your single estate you live like excellent maids, so the time will come when you shall become eminent Matrons.   

CHAP. III.  
Encouragements to young Virgins and Damosels to behave themselves well in their single estate, that they may become eminent Wives & Matrons, by the example of others, drawn from diverse selected Histories.  
TO encourage all maids how to behave themselves, that they may be the better married (for as yet they are not come to the rudiments of reading a Curtain Lecture, for that only belongs to wives; the very name whereof will instruct them soon enough (if not too soon) in the practice:) I hold it not impertinent to the present tractate in hand, to show you an history or two (and those not common) how some Virgins, but of mean condition and quality, have, by their virtues merely, and generous behaviour, attained to great preferment and honour: for variety of History, intermixed with discourse of times, makes the Argument less tedious to the Reader. Thus therefore it happened, Pulgotius the Historian being my Author, who remembers me of one Galdrata Bertha, the daughter of a private Florentine, but of extraordinary beauty and virtue.  
It so happened, that the Emperor Otho, the fourth of that name, upon some urgent occasion coming to the great City of Florence, he was entertained with all the sumptuous and triumphal shows which could be then provided, as best suiting with a State Imperial. He being one day abroad to take the air, a great confluence of people gathered about him, of all degrees, to behold his person, whom till then they had never seen, and to bestow on him for his welcome into the City, the loud acclamation of Ave Caesar. Amongst all the other Virgins and Damosels there assembled, he cast his eye upon this Galdrata Bertha, and on the sudden was much taken with her beauty; in so much that, not able to mother his affection (for he had taken a most especial notice of her) after he had retired himself unto the Duke's Palace, where he was at that time bounteously feasted, he began openly at the table to speak of this Damosels beauty, giving her a character of priority before all that he had before time seen.  
Her father, whose name was Bellincionus, there attending at the table, finding by the Emperor's description that there was no other likelihood but that it was his daughter of whom he gave such an extraordinary approbation, because he reflected upon her stature, feature and habit, sends for her privately to Court, and commands her by the duty of a child, all delays set apart, to make there her present and personal appearance. To which the innocent damosel (ignorant, and no way suspicious of any such treason intended against her chastity, especially from a father) assented, and came. The banquet being ended, and the table withdrawn, the father (worse than the Roman Cabbus or Phuillus, branded with eternal infamy, who though honoured with the style of Equites Romani, either for gain or flattery were guilty of their wife's prostitution) he (I say) whispered the Emperor in the ear, and told him that he would presently bring him into the company and acquaintance of her whose beauty and feature he had so liberally extolled. The Prince gladly embracing the motion, he retired him into a private and remote chamber, where she was attending her father's command; the Emperor at the first interview acknowledging her to be the same: when the most unworthy Parent of so accomplished a child, thus said unto him: Lo here the Virgin by you so much praised ready to prostrate herself to your Majesty, whom you may with all freeness kiss and embrace at your pleasure. At which words Otho, almost ecstasied, came toward her to take her by the hand, and proceeded further to have touched her lips: but she astonished and abashed at her father's unnatural levity and besenesse, denied the Emperor her right hand, and with her left modestly put him back, uttering these words: With pardon to your high and sacred Majesty (Royal Sir) neither of these your fair proffers it lies in me to grant you, having made betwixt my Saviour and myself such an irrevocable vow and contract, that I will never lend that hand or these lips to any, of what state or condition soever, whom I shall not undoubtedly know to be my Lord and Husband: (at which the father frowned) and she further proceeded and said (falling low upon her knees, and many tears dropping from her eyes) He only insidiates my life that se●kes to take away the least part of mine honour; and there she paused. Which in the apprehension of the Emperor was uttered with such a bashful shame, and well-becoming modesty, that in the Prince it took a very sudden and solid impression; who comparing the villainy of the father with the virtues of the daughter, and setting the base Pandarism of the one against the rare prudence of the other, it compelled him into a divided and distracted countenance. For with a stern and supercelious brow bend against him, but a smooth and unwrinkled front applied unto her, he made this reply, aiming his speech unto her: Delicate and sweet Virgin, are you then already disposed of? or by private contract engaged to any man? To which she with a low and well-beseeming obedience answered, that she had not as yet devoted her self unto any. Will you then (replied the Emperor) fair damosel, give me leave to provide you of an husband? Who answered unto him, that it might appear in her great rudeness & indiscretion withal, not to agree to such a motion, and therefore with all obedience, submission, and gratitude, she surrendered herself wholly to his Highness' choice, assuredly presuming that since he him●elfe was endued with such rare continence and virtue, he could not choose but be ●ble to distinguish the like in others; holding it a great felicity and fortune that a Prince of his known piety and goodness, would be so gracious as to solicit in that nature for his so unworthy and dejected handmaid. Which language was delivered with such discretion and modesty, that Otho was therewith much taken; when presently calling for a Gentleman of especial remark, who waited on him in his chamber, called Guido Germanic●s, of a no●le House and Family, whom he much favoured; he told him▪ that he had at length found out a gift to reward him, and to remunerate his long and faithful service; such a one as might become the giver, and (withal) prove worthy his acceptance: and in the closure of these words presented unto him the Virgin Galdrata Bertha. These two at the first interview so well loved and liked, for as Ovid saith, None ever loved that loved not at first sight. that by their mutual consent they were in a royal assembly publicly contracted by Caesar, who gave her for her dower that spacious valley which lieth beneath the hill Casentius, and the fields called Agri Aren●in●, which soon after he made an Earldom, and conferred that noble Title upon him; and from these two succeeded the famous and warlike family of the Guidons (so renowned in history) which hath continued unto many sucessions.  
Paulus Aemilius tells us that Manesteus the Athenian, and son to Iphicrates that famous Captain, took unto his bed a maid of a foreign Country, but so low degreed that the history affords her not so much as a name: who though she was poor in estate, yet was she rich and abundantly qualified both in the riches of the body and the mind. The son being demanded which of his two parents he affected most, his father or his mother? he made answer, that in his fi●iall duty and affection he gave the precedence unto his mother. But he that proposed the question, knowing the difference in their birth● and breeding, demanding the reason thereof, he gave him this satisfaction; True it is (saith he) that m● 〈◊〉 her h●th made me an Ally and Countryman of Thrace, but my mother hath made me an Athenian, and the son of a noble Captain.  
Bersane was the daughter of one Arbassus a private soldier in the Camp of Alexander, who, as Quint. Curtius, and Aul. Gelli●●, affirm, was of sweet grace, and amiable aspect, that like the Sun appearing out of a cloud, so out of the darkness of her neglected fortune there shone such a majestical lustre, that he who was then the world's sole Monarch, preferred her before the wife a●d beautiful daughters of Darius, whom he had late vanquished: in so much that it is related of him by the forenamed Authors, that after his first familiarity with her he was never known to cast an incontinent look upon any other, nor to have congress with any third, only his wife Roxana, and this Bersane, whom he commended to his Queen, and made her his ●ole companion.  
It is likewise reported of the famous Rhodope, that she was at the first but servant to jadmonsamius the Philosopher, yet by her amiable feature and dexterous carriage she afterwards was advanced to such honour as to be wife unto Psammeticus King of Egypt.  
Lardana, from whom the renowned family of the Heraclidae boast their descent, was a damosel of a very low and mean parentage, and indeed no better than an handmaid and servant, yet by her rare and unmatchable virtue she after raised her fortunes to the eminence to be a fruitful seminary of many noble and renowned Gentlemen; for so Herodotus witnesseth of her in his Eutarpe.  
Pysostrates, as Phelarchus historifies, matched himself with a Virgin of rare beauty, but her birth so obscure and ignoble, that the story affordeth it no name; yet after, she by her wisdom and counsel advanced him from being a Gentleman of private condition, to a Monarchal government. Of her Clademus in his book● entitled Redd●tionum, reports, that she was for sta●e a juno, for wisdom a Pallas, for beauty a Venus, and worthy to be styled the daughter of Sacrates. It is moreover said of her, tha● she dealt Sceptres, and disposed Crowns at her pleasure; so great was her power in the place in which she governed.  
I will end with Asputia the daughter of one Hermotinus a man of low condition (as Aelianus the approved Historiographer in his book De varia Historia relates) who being snatched from the arms of her father by a Persian soldier, was for the excellency of her feature and beauty, by him presented to King Cyrus the son of Darius and Parasatides. Her virtuous education, unmatchable beauty, singular modesty, and approved wisdom, were the immediate steps to purchase her such favour with the Persian Monarch, that he not only made her his Empress, but so tenderly affected her, that notwithstanding his choice of wives, and multiplicity of concubines, from the first hour that she grew into his knowledge and acquaintance he never embraced the company of any other woman. And after the death of Cyrus, whose funerals she bewailed with unspeakable sorrow, being afterward as highly favoured by Artaxerxes who succeeded him in the Empire, who desired to make her a partner in his bed and Throne; yet was it with long suit from him, and great unwillingness in her, before she could be won to participate in either of them.  
And these out of infinite I have collected only to show unto you that Virgins, howsoever obscurely descended, who from their Ancestors could neither boast of wealth or Gentry, yet by their virtues, beauty, and generous behaviour, have not only attained unto matches of most especial remark, but some also to dignities imperial.  
Famous unto all ages, even to the perpetuity of memory, shall be that great Arch-champion of virginity, Virginius, that brave Roman knight, whose name was given him in his childhood as a good omen, presaging what a defender of chastity he would after prove who because his sole and only daughter. Virgini● should not fall into th● hands of Appius Claudius one of the Decemviri, to b● vitiated and dishonoured when he perceived by th● corruptness of the Judge and the perfidiousness 〈◊〉 the false evidence, that 〈◊〉 was ready to fall and suffe● under his cruel mercy, 〈◊〉 the open face of the 〈◊〉 at the bar at which her cause was then pleaded, ●e ●lew her with his own hands, so vindicate her innocence's; desirous rather (as Valerius reports of him) of ●n innocuous child to be the deathsman, than the father of a defiled daughter: of whom Silius Italicus l. 13. Bel. Punico thus speaks: 

— Virginia juxta Cerne, cruentato vulnus sub pectore servat.   

Behold before thee where Virginia's placed,  
Her white breast with a griefly wound defaced.  
The bloody knife doth witness the sad stroke,  
Which freed her body from lusts servile yoke:  
Whose modest innocence so far extends,  
Her father's act she in her death commends.     

CHAP. IU.  
Of election or choice before marriage. The conveniences and inconveniences belonging unto marriage disputed, and compare● with the honour and dignity thereof.  
BEfore I come to wedlock itself, it is very pertinent that I speak something of choice before marriage. Saith one, Liber esse non potest cui affectus imperant, & cupiditates domi●nantur: he cannot be truly said to have a free choice and election, in whom his affections rule, and his appetites govern. The Queen Artemisia being asked by one of her Nobility what choice should be used in love? replied, All persons ought to imitate the skilful Lapidaries, who measure not the nature of the gem by the outward hue, but the inward virtue. We have an old Adage frequent amongst us, which for the most part proveth true, that choice is soon deceived in three things; namely, in Broker's wares, Courtiers promises, and women's constancies: therefore it is good for all men to look before they leap; for it is generally found, 

Qui non ante cavet, iste  
Passus erit quod sit triste.   

That man deserves of ●orrow double share,  
Who once forwarned, will after not beware.    
In choosing a wife, look not upon the feature of the body, but search into the fancies of her mind; and take her not for her outward person, but her inward perfection. For if thou makest election of beauty, it fadeth; if of riches, they soon waste; if of fame, it oft proves false; if of virtue, that only continues. For as Theopompus tells us, If the eye be the chooser, the delight is short; if the will, the end is want; but if reason, the effect is happy. And Bias, one of the Grecian Sages, was wont to say, that he that marrieth himself to a fair face, oftentimes tieth himself to a foul bargain.  
But there are some that scarce will admit of any choice at all, and say, Who that is free will willingly run into fetters like a fool? For whosoever maketh himself a Captive without constraint, incurreth the imputation either to be counted wilful or witless: and amongst such, one deeply entire unto me, who was in a great hesitation whether to marry or no, showed me a fancy of his written to that purpose, which was as followeth: 
What kind of wife were I best wed? A maid?  
she's young perhaps, and knows not how to trade.  
A widow? Who stale leave can endure?  
One old? Thou of a crabbed match art sure?  
One fruitful? Numerous issue will ask cost.  
One barren? Youth and strength in vain are lost.  
One rich? she'll domineer, and master prove.  
One poor? Whom want oppresseth who can love?  
One mute? Her tongue will not delight mine ●are.  
A prater? That's a burden I most fear.  
One fair? Such aptest are to be misled.  
One foul? she's tedious both to board and bed.  
No marriage then, I'll keep my single state,  
Since on a wife so many dangers wait.  
But if heaven will that I ● Consort have,  
O grant me one that's pious, wise, and grave.   
So much for choice: I come now to discourse of marriage itself, and the inconveniences and conveniences thereof. For though Diogenes the Cynic Philosopher was of opinion, that for a young man to marry it was ever too soon, and for an old man always too late; and Euripides the Tragic Poet calls it an evil, yet to be desired; and that S●obaeus saith, a woman bringeth but two joyful days only in her whole life time, which are, the day of her marriage, and the day of her death; and that Thales seeing Solon lament the death of his son, gave him no other comfort than this, that for the like reason only he had refused to marry; and that Cleobulus meeting his son in the way, having finished the nuptial ceremony, presented him with a branch of Hen-bane; thereby intimating, that his sweet meat must be served in with sour sauce, and a terrible tempest was to succeed so temperate a calm: yet we read on the contrary part, that Lycurgus the famous Lawgiver branded all such with infamy as refused to marry. And the Caspians made an edict, that whosoever past their years singly, and did not contract matrimony before they came to fifty, in all feasts and assemblies such should have the lowest and most dishonourable places allotted them, as those who had neglected their prime and most flourishing time of their age, and done a thing merely repugnant to nature.  
Homer tells us that the Grecian Ladies in his days held wedlock in such adoration, as they reckoned their years from their marriage, not their birth: and we Christians hold, that our spiritual marriage is contracted in baptism, confirmed in godly life, and consummated in a repentant death. Now concerning whether it be necessitous or no, it may be thus disputed:  
Matrimony is therefore to be esteemed and honoured, as being first ordained in Paradise, and since continued upon earth, and in a pious gratitude returns us many pious and gracious children, to be made Citizens and Saints in heaven. It purchaseth man the name of father here below, as a type of that great and Almighty Father above: here generating, as he there creating. God made nature, man here maintains her: and to such things as else would perish by time (by his posterity) he giveth perpetuity. Marriage puts fortitude into man, to fight boldly in the defence of his King and his Country. For who can be a coward, fearing his wife and children may be made captives? It maketh men wise, as careful to provide for them: it begets temperance, and out of voluptuousness breedeth modesty: for it limiteth lust within law, and prescribeth a moderation to pleasure, which in itself being damnable, is by matrimony made sufferable.  
Now if some shall object and say, Though marriage with peace may be called the world's Paradise, yet if it be with shrife, it may be termed the lives Purgatory; and that all such as marry in haste may repent at leisure: and some to the like purpose, may quote Terence in Adelphis, in these words: 

Duxi uxorem, quam ibi non miseriam vidi? etc.   

What have I got by marrying of a wife,  
But misery to attend me all my life?  
Children I have, and that's another care:  
The charge to keep them makes me poor and bare.  
In toil and travel all my time I spend,  
But of my tedious labour there's no end.  
Now I am old, and for my age thus spent,  
What's my reward, but hate and discontent?    
Many no doubt have for these and the like fears been afraid, and forborn to marry at all, thinking with Plautus, that he who desires to entangle and intricate himself into a world of troubles, may provide himself of a ship to guide, or a wife to govern. Another will say, he that taketh one who is fair and false, weddeth himself unto a world of miseries; or if to one as virtuous as beautiful, yet in possessing a woman he at the best enjoyeth but a needful evil. To such it may be thus answered, that in this they rather accuse fortune than wedlock; for all things that happen cross and averse, are the effects of chance, not of matrimony. Much better it is therefore carefully to respect those good things thereon necessarily depending, than timerously to regard the disasters accidentally reflecting. Admit the worst that can be objected, yet is not marriage therefore to be neglected; for if in all other courses and passages of our life we be crossed, shall we therefore be altogether deterred from prosecuting them, as things accursed?  
Examine all trades, faculties, disciplines, or professions: (to instance some few in behalf of the rest) what practice is it, though the most necessitous and useful, which may not be cavilled at, or that we cannot find some colour to accuse? The Husbandman, though the frost prove violent, the snow unseasonable, the showers intempestive or immoderate, yet doth he not therefore forsake his fields, cease his culture, and despair of an happy harvest.  
The Mariner having endured many storms at Sea, in which his goods have been hazarded, and his life endangered, doth not instantly upon his landing untackle his ship, and having brought her from the water, break her up to the fire; but rather proposeth to himself those many benefits which may arise by navigation: as that no profit can be made without peril, and no delightful gain but with some great difficulty: ●ee considereth, that the temperature of weather succeedeth tempests; that wealth cometh not by wishing, but watching: neither can rest in age be procured, where labour and industry in youth is not practised.  
Wars take away the limbs and lives of many, yet doth not that terrify others from the attaining unto honour by arms: and ●o of the rest. Good things are not to be forborn for the fear of evils that may ensue, rather the worst things are to be endured, that the better may be encouraged. Were it not then absurd that Husbandmen, Navigators, and Soldiers, shall not forbear to use all diligence and exercise in their several qualities? (as no way deterred by the detriments belonging unto them) and shall any man forbear marriage for the multiplicity of cares and crosses which some (through their vain and idle fears) would asperse upon it?  
Shall a Virgin fear to marry only with this evasion, Say I should be a widow; or having children borne, O what a grief it would be to me to see them buried? Let her know that in this case death is to be blamed, not matrimony; and she may as well accuse nature for making us men, and not Gods. If either husband or children die, it is because they were borne, and their bodies created mortal, and not immortal.  
It may be therefore thus further argued, that marriage supplies such deficiency in nature: for by a second nuptial the wife loseth the name of widow, and redeemeth not only the late lost name of husband, but to her children the forfeited name of father: by which marriage maketh amends in what nature seemed to do amiss, and is rather a restauration than a deprivation to Orphancie and Widowhood.  
If you shall sum up the cares and troubles that depend upon wedlock, set but against them the profits and the pleasures, and they shall far surmount them both in nature and number. What greater content to a man, than after the laborious travels of the day to repose at night in the bosom of a sweet and loving bedfellow? What more delightful hope than the exectation of an happy issue? The throws of the mother are forgot in the birth of the child, and the pleasures of the latter far surmount the pains of the former: the peevishness of the child's infancy is quite forgot when he begins to prattle. What comfort their toward youth breeds, and what consolation their more stayed years beget, I leave to their consideration who have been the fruitful parents of a fortunate progeny.  
If then by lawful marriage souls are here inspired upon earth to become glorious Saints in heaven, and parents (in their issue and succession) imitate the Creator himself, by giving life to others, that they by an alternate course, as they receive breath from their fathers, may also return it to their own children (and so till the last dissolution): if it change the common titles of man and woman to the honoured names of father and mother; if it beget temperance, providence, and the rest, and make these carnal pleasures, which are otherwise interdicted and forbidden, honest and legitimate; if the certain comforts so far surmount all casual corrosives, as it is so graciously honoured, why should it not be generally embraced? And though Saint Ambrose saith, Nuptiae terras implent, virginitas Paradi●um; marriage peoples the earth, but virginity Paradise; yet Saint Austin prefers humble marriage before proud virginity. I conclude this Chapter with that of Claudian in Europa.  

Nascitur ad fructum mulier prolemque futuram.   

A woman was made fruitful in her birth,  
Still to continue mankind upon earth.    

CHAP. V.  
How parents ought to dispose of their daughters. The miseries of enforced contracts. The manner of marriage amongst the Romans, the Muscovites, the ancient Britan's, the Gauls, the Germans, etc.  
PLato in his book De Legib. tells us, that mankind is by marriage made immortal, and lasteth for ever: for by leaving children to beget children, the father by successive genera●ion is made immortal: of which immortality all such are justly deprived, who abandon themselves to a life single and solitary. But there ought to be a great care in the Parents in disposing of their children, the better to continue this blessed perpetuity. The Emperor Aurelius informeth us, that there was a custom amongst the Rhodians, or a Proverb at least, that the fathers to marry a son need to spend but one day, but in the disposing of one daughter they ought to consider with themselves ten years: which were it even in these times carefully observed, and diligently imitated, might be the prevention of many inconveniences, or rather palpable mischiefs, of which we have had many woeful examples.  
Some through their base avarice, not willing to allow unto their daughter's sufficient dowers. Others (too prodigal) have stretched themselves beyond their ability and means, to be the ruin of their children by pride, and of themselves by poverty. Others (ill advised, or too selfe-opinioned) by their too much dotage on the sons have cast too great a neglect upon the daughters; by which, as they lose time, so they forfeit duty, and many times chastity: for when they come to maturity of years, such as their fathers have no care to bestow, have a will to dispose of themselves; the event of which is for the most part disaster and penury. Others will enforce them to marry where themselves like, and not where their children love; the effects of which are commonly discontent and misery (for inequality either in years, fortunes, or affections, is the road way to spouse-breach and didivorce: for where there is dis-union of hearts, there must needs be disorders in the house.  
How often have forced contracts been made to add land to land, not love to love? and to unite houses to houses, not hearts to hearts? which hath been the occasion that men have turned monsters, and women devils. I forbear to instance any, for in nomination of the dead I might perhaps give distaste to such of the kindred who yet survive, who no question could rather with that the memory thereof were rather buried than blazed abroad. Further, who shall but follow the Circuit in the Country, besides these trials here in the City, shall seldom find a general Assizes without some evidence or other giust upon the like tragical accidents. But leaving these, I purpose in the next place to speak something concerning the ancient ceremonies observed amongst the Romans, and others, in their contracts and nuptial ceremonies.  
The Romans called them Sponsalia, à spondendo, of the vow and promise made each to other; which words were writ down, recorded, and sealed before witnesses, and those were called Signatores. Before the ceremony, the Bride and Bridegroom consulted severally either of them with a soothsayer, to know what omen should be in their future marriage. Of which juvenal in his tenth satire maketh mention: — Veniet cum signatoribu● auspex. i. The Soothsayer comes with those that signed to the contract. Aul. Gellius informs us that the young man gave unto the Virgin a ring, which she ware upon her fourth finger on the left hand, because to that finger alone (as the best Anatomists tell us) proceeds a vein that hath its original from the heart. The word nuptiae is derived from nubo, which signifieth to cover: and Pliny saith, that the woman was presented unto her husband in a yellow veil, which was called Flamineum (which colour is held to be the emblem of jealousy) and with that she covered her face. And in regard of the good success which Romulus and his soldiers had in their rape of the Sabine Virgins, they still continued a custom, that the Bridegroom should snatch away the Bride from the lap or bosom of her father, mother, or the next of their alliance and kindred: and after this s●eming violence, her husband was to part or divide the hair of her head with the point or top of a spear, with which some Gladiator or Fencer had before been slain, and that was called Hasta caelibaris. T●e moral whereof (as the Author informeth me) was, that nothing but such a lance or spear, or such like violence, should after disjoin them.  
Plutarch in Roman. Quaestion. 87. demands why the Bride's hair from the upper part of the forehead to the crown was separated with such a lance or spear? Was this (saith he) a symbol or emblem that the Romans first marriages were made by war and rape? Or is this admonition to the Brides, that they being married unto a warlike people, should therefore u●e moderation both in their habit and diet? Or (as Lycurg●s commanded) that all the gates and portals of their houses should (without other curiosity) be only figured with the saw and the axe, to signify that nothing vain or superfluous should enter in at those doors? Or doth it imply (by circumstance) that wedlock ought not to be dis-joined but by sword and death? Or is it because the spear is consecrate to juno, who is also called Pronuba, that is, the Goddess of marriage, all her statues being portrayed leaning upon a lance or javelin? and that she is called Dea quiritis? and that a spear was anciently called quiris? whence Mars took his denomination of Quirinus, etc.  
The next day after the nuptials was a feast held, to which all their friends and kindred were invited, and such they called Repotia: their Aruspices or Witches conjectured of their future good or evil by a Crow, because such is the consociety of those birds, that if one of the matched couple perish by accident, the other remains widowed and singular ever after.  
There were then several ways by which a Virgin became a man's lawful wife: The first was called 〈◊〉, that is, by prescription, that is, if she were contracted by her Parents or Overseers, and continued with her husband the space of three entire years, without being absent from him three whole nights in a twelve month. The second was, Confarreatione, which imports, that when being married before a Flamine or chief Priest, before ten witnesses, the married couple eat together of a barley cake, before used in the sacrifice, which was called a Far, and the solemnities (as Cicero pro Muraena avers) were called Farracea, from barley. The third was, Coemptione, of buying and selling: for the wife bought her husband, under a seeming pretence, with a small piece of silver. Suetonius speaks of a fourth, which is titled, Sortitione, which was by lot or lottery. But in the former, which is called Coemptione, where, by the ancient Roman laws, Nubentes mulieres tres ad virum asses far solebant. when the women that were to be married brought three small pieces of money to the Bridegroom, the man was not called by his own name, nor the woman by hers, but he Caius, and she Ca●a, in remembrance of the most excellent and virtuous Matron Caia Caecilia, wife to Tarqvinius Priscus. Then the new made Spouse being brought home by her friends to the very doors of her husband's house, she was to say, Ubi t● Caius? Hic sum ego Caia: which Erasmus thus interpreteth, Ut tu Dominus, ita ego Domina: i. as thou art Master, so am I Mistress▪ and she that was thus married might justly challenge the title of Mater familias, or, Mother of the household. The Bride was lighted thither with five torches burning, which did intimate the great necessity that married wives have of these five gods and goddesses, jupiter, juno, Venus, Suadela, and Diana, otherwise called Lucina.  
There were no contracts held to prove successful amongst the Romans which were not celebrated with the two elements of Fire and Water. It is in one of Plutarch's Roman questions, What is the reason (saith he) that in all nuptials the Bride is commanded to touch Fire and Water? Is it because the Fire is an active Element, and therefore representeth the man; and the water a passive, and consequently an Emblem of the woman? Or is it because the Fire illustrates, and the water purgeth: therefore the wife ought by all her endeavours and industry to preserve her purity and chastity? Or is it because that as Fire without humour to feed loseth its fury, ●nd abateth its strength; and water without some heat groweth useless and without motion: so man and woman, separated and dis-joined, are of no validity and power, but by conjunction or commixtion of their several faculties, they by offices belonging unto marriage are made complete and perfect? Or doth the moral extend so far, that the one ought not to forsake the other, but to endure prosperity and adversity alike, though they be driven to that extremity that they have no other good thing left them save only Fire and Water to comfort them? According to that of Seneca the Tragedian, Amor perennis Conjugis castae manet: i. The love of a chaste wife lasteth for ever. Or as Ovid writ in his exile unto his wise in these words, 

Nil opus est morte pro me, sed amore fideque,  
Non ex difficili fama petenda tibi est.   

Die not for me, no such thing I desire:  
Thy love and faith shall make thy fame aspire.    
But to proceed with the Roman Ceremonies: Servius super Aeneid. observeth, that when the woman was brought to the door of the Bride-chamber, she anointed the posts with oil, and was called uxor, quasi unxor, ab unguendo: this done, the husband took her in his arms, and lifted her over the threshold with a seeming violence, because (in modesty) she should not be thought to go willingly without some force unto the place where she should unloose her Caestus or Virgin girdle. At her coming in, all the company present called with a loud voice, Talassio, Talassio: the reason of which clamour Plutarch renders us in vita P●mp. as also in his 31. Roman question, to this purpose:  
In that great rape which the soldiers of Romulus committed upon the Sabine Virgins, one of the fairest among them being catcht up by one of the meanest soldiers, some of the rest, envying his good fortune, would have taken her away from him by force; which he perceiving, cried out, Talassius, and that he was bearing her to Talassius, who was then a prime young Gentleman of the Army, and of great remark amongst the Romans: by which clamour he was suffered to convey her privately unto him. Since which time they have observed in all their marriages to use the name of Talassius, as in all the Grecian nuptials they sing Hymen, Hymenaee.  
Many other superstitions they have used, which might seem tedious here to relate, as their Nuptialia dona, i. Their marriage gifts and tokens, the bed in which they reposed the first night being called Lectus genialis, or (as some will have it) Lectus genitalis. And if at any time these were at difference or dissension betwixt themselves, they repaired to a Temple or Chapel erected to the honour of a certain goddess called Dea viriplaca, as much as to say, the goddess pleaseman; where when they had stayed a while, and offered such oblations as were by the Flamines appointed to that purpose, all their jars as they were before debated, so they were then and there ended, and they departed thence well satisfied and reconciled.   

CHAP. VI  
How marriage is solemnised amongst the Russians, the Gauls, the Assyrians, the greeks, the Namasanes, the Sco●s, etc. The honour of marriage, and of twelve impediments that may hinder is.  
THe manner of solemnising Marriage amongst the Russians or people of Muscovie is different from other nations: for the man, though he never in his life time beheld the woman, yet is he not permitted to have any or the least view of her when he would solicit her for marriage, but it is done by his mother or next kinswoman: and when the match is agreed upon, as well by the Parents as the parties, (for without the consent of the Parents no marriage is held amongst them lawful) the father and chief friends meet together and conclude about the dower. It is to be observed, that the Virgin brings the dower, but the young man maketh her no jointure unless she have issue by him, and then she hath full interest in his estate.  
And if she were never married before, the Parents and friends enter into bond that she shall prove a Virgin. The contract thus concluded, they send tokens the one to the other, but interchange no looks all this while. The Eeve before the nuptial day, the Bride is carried either in a Callimago or Coach, or if it be winter, on a sledd (by reason of the snow and ice) to the house of the Bridegroom, with her wedding clothes, and the bed on which they are that night to lie, which for the most part is very rich and costly. That night she is accompanied with her mother and her other friends, but all this while of him not seen. The next day she is married in a veil, or rather an hood of knits wo●ke or lawn, which covereth her from the Crown of the head to the waste. They and their friends ride all to Church, being well mounted, though never so near the place, and though they be people of the meanest quality amongst them. The words & contract, with the ceremonies, as the Ring, etc. are almost one with ours: and the nuptial knot being knit by the Priest, th● Bride comes to her husband there standing by the Altar, and bows herself as low as to his foot, in sign of future obedience: in requital of which, the Bridegroom casteth his upper garment over her, as a token or promise that he will from that time forward shield and protect her.  
To these two standing together, come the father and the next allied unto the woman, and bow themselves to the Bridegroom, and his father and friends do the like to her, as a tie and union of love and affinity betwixt the two kindreds and families: to bind which there is a loaf of bre●d presented to the Priest, who breaketh it, and distributeth it amongst them, of which they all eat, and protest withal, that they are all a● one loaf made of so many several grains, or as so many guests invited to one table. This ceremony ended, the husband takes the wise by the hand, and leadeth her to the Church porch, (their fathers and friends following them) where they are met by others, who present them with bowls and cups of several fashions and siz●●, filled with Meade and Russ-wine, whereof the Bridegroom first takes a Chark or Chalice in his hand, and drinks to the Bride; who opening her hood or veil below (yet so that her face is still unseen) she pledgeth him: this done, they part at the Church door, he goeth to his father's house, and she to hers, where they entertain their friends apart.  
At the entering into which houses, corn is cast upon them from the upper windows, in token of fertility and plenty ever after to attend them. The evening come, the Bride is conducted to her husband's father's house, and there lodged that night, her veil still covering her head. Besides, she is enjoined from her mother and other Matrons her friends, not to speak one word, because the husband is neither to see her face, nor hear her tongue, till the next morrow after their marriage; neither is she that day to speak at all, saving some few limited words, merely of form, nor three days after. If she transgress the least of these ceremonies, it is a great dis-reputation to her all her whole life after.  
The third day expired, they depart unto their own house, which is by this time sufficiently accommodated. And herein is to be observed, that for the marriage day, and the whole time that the nuptial feast is solemnised, he hath the honour to be called Molodax Knez, that is, young Duke; and she Molodax Knezay, the young Duchess.  
julius Caesar in the 6. book of his Commentaries tells us, that amongst the ancient Gauls (which is now the French nation) the husband brought so much goods, and laid it down, as did amoun● to the dower which his wife brought with her, and a just account being taken, the stock was put together, the party surviving being made full Executor, and possessing both their means to them and their children.  
Cornelius Tacitus gives a noble commendation of the Germans. The wife, saith he, never bringeth or assureth any dower to her husband, but he to his wife, the Parents, cousins, and friends being present to approve or dislike of all such passages as are between them: neither is there any interchange of love-tokens, intending to delicacy, or to corrupt the chastity of the woman; but his present is a couple of Oxen yoked, an horse bridled and completely furnished, with a Sword, Buckler, or Target, and a Javelin: neither doth she interchangeably present him with any gift, save some weapons, either of offence or defence. And that the wife may not think herself exempted from the ●ares, travels, and dangers that the husband may either by his industry at home, or valour abroad incur, these yoked cattle, the Horse, and weapons of war, are a remembrance unto her.  
There are very few known adulteries committed amongst that great and populous Nation, for the punishment thereof is very severe and speedy. For she that shall be found guilty of such an act, her husband causeth her to be sh●ven, and then stripped naked, and after brings her out of his own doors in the presence of all his and her nearest kindred, then beats her with a battoon through the streets: for there is no connivance to be used, or pardon to be granted to any woman who hath once violated her wedlock chastity: neither can her youth, beauty, or riches, though all should meet together in one, ever purchase her to have the honour of a second husband; so audible and detestable is that sin held amongst them.  
The Assyrians take their daughters with them (when they be marriageable) to the market, and there such as want wives buy them for their money, or money-worth. The like is in custom with the Babylonians, and people of Thrace: so did the ancient Grecians purchase their wives, either for coin, or some other commodity that was vendible. The like the Indians in many places observe.  
Iphidanas the son of Antenor, according to Homer, gave fifty yo●ke of Oxen to his father-in-law to enjoy his daughter in marriage. In Tapila a great City in India, situate betwixt the two Rivers of Indus and Hydaspes, they entertain no wives into their conjugal embraces which they buy not at some price. Strabo in his book of Geography, lib. 15. informs us, that in some Countries, as Carthage and others, there was a custom, that if a poor man's daughter by reason of her poverty could not compass a husband, she was brought to a public fair or market, with trumpets and loud music before her, and when a great confluence of people was gathered about her, first h●r back parts were discovered bare as high as to her shoulders from her heel, and then the like before; and if upon that view she were found to be well featured, and no way defective, at the charge of the City she was to be provided of a husband.  
Plato in his sixth book de Legib. writes, lest any man should be deceived in the choice of his Bride, and so after repent himself when it is too late, that it was thought convenient, that diverse assemblies of young men and maids should be permitted to wrestle, and ●rie masteries together, having their bodies naked from the neck to the waste, as far as modesty would give leave. But St. Jerome against jovinian condemneth this wanton and lascivious custom, and so doth Clemens Alexandrinus, pedag. lib. 2. cap. 9 and St. Cyprian in his book De Virgin. habit. in these words, The honour and bashful shame of the body are both preserved in the modest coverture of the garment. And Blandus supra leges interposit. cap. 1. writeth, that the very fear of shame, without the terror of death or torment, is sufficient of itself to put off a contract.  
The Namasanes, a people of Lybia (as Herodo●u● informs us) had a strange custom, to cause the Bride the first night of her nuptials to prostitute herself to all her guests, and then she was enjoined to preserve her chastity for ever after. The Anthropophagis, the Medes, and some part of the Aethiopians, after they be once married, are admitted free congress with their mothers and sisters. The Arabs make their wives common to all the kindred. The Moors, Numidians, Persians, Parthians, Garamantes, the Turks, and some Jews, take as many wives as they can well maintain: and the ancient Athenians made their wives and daughters common.  
It was once a custom i● Scotland, that the Lord of the soil might lay just claire and title to every Virgin's maidenhead, who was to be married within his Lordship. For by that custom the Tenant held his land; which was after quite abolished by King Malcoline, who ordained that the new married couple should redeem her virginity, in which her Landlord pretended interest, with a small piece of gold, which in many places of the Kingdom is observed even until this day.  
A young man of Lacedaemon, being seated in the Theatre, when a valiant and ancient Captain (a single man and Bachelor) but for his valour and famous achievements much honoured by his Nation, came to take his place, to be a spectator of the sports and games there presented; he denied to give him place: at which Callidus, for so was the Captain called, much offended at the arrogance of his youth, gave him course and bitter language: to whom he returned this short answer, Thou hast (O great Captain Callidus) as yet fathered no child, neither occasioned the birth of any, who coming unto my age, may when I am come unto thine, in this place arise to do me a like honour.  
Plato also in his book of Laws, appointed single men no place of dignity in the commonweal, nor suffered any to be conferred upon them; but caused them to be more charged with fines and amerciaments than any of the other married Citizens. Socrates professeth of himself, to have learned more moral philosophy from women, than natural, of which he made excellent use.  
In marriage there is a domestic Commonweal, in which the Father of the family may express wisdom, temperance, justice, piety, and all other virtues: by loving his wife, instructing his children, governing his family, ordering his affairs, disposing his goods.  
The Romans in the year that Quintus Me●ellus was Consul, established many famous and worthy Laws and privileges, to encourage people to marry, and especially, unto those who had numerous issue, and great increase of children: for without wedlock all alliance would be extinct, all Commonweals in short time decay, and all sweet society be quite abandoned.  
There be twelve impediments to hinder lawful marriage, or to disannul it after it be once consummated, which Cardinal Caj●tanus comprehends in these four verses: 
Error, conditio, votum, cognatio, crimen,  
Cul●us disparitas, vis, ord●, ligamen, honesta●:  
Si sis affinis, si forte c●ire nequibis,  
Haec socianda vetant conubia, facta retractate.   
Thus paraphrased.  
Error, condition, parentage, and vow,  
Adultery (the law will not allow  
Disparity in divine worship) and  
Violence or force, or where we understand;  
In priesthood; there's profaneness, or else where,  
False faiths professed, we likewise must forbear,  
When there is precontract, for honesty,  
Affinity, and disability:  
These twelve from present marriage us dissuade,  
Or can retract from wedlock when 'tis made.  
I end with this of Socrates: Let men obey the Laws, and women their Husbands, whose duty is to be wise in speaking, and mild in conversation; circumspect in promise, and careful in performance; faultless in taking, and faithful in giving good counsel; patient in adversity, and not puffed up in● prosperity; somewhat indulgent over his wife, but most industrious in the education of his children.  
And a good wife, according to Theophrastus, must be grave abroad, gentle at home, constant to love, patient to suffer, obsequious to her neighbours, obedient to her husband. For silence and patience are the two i● dissoluble ties of conjugal love and piety.   

CHAP. VII.  
What manner of Lectures Wives in the Country re●● to their Husbands. The several dispositions of Wives, and humours of Husbands, illustrated by diverse selected Histories. The morosity of the marriage bed.  
YOu see what marriage 〈◊〉 or at lest what it oug●● to be. But hitherto I have only read a Lecture unto women, but I come now to show you what manner of Lectures wives use to read unto their husbands: and for method sake I will divide them into several heads. And first begin with the Country. I find in a Prognostication or Almanac, continued from the date ●●ereof to the end of the world, written by jacobus Henrichmanus, & 〈…〉 to the generous S. Christophar●s Baron of Schwarze●●berg: and the illustrious Poet Henric●s ●ebelli●s; to this purpose. In this year, saith he, Virgin's an● Wives shall have long hair and short memories: women shall participate in their domestical government with their husband●▪ and strive to rule alike, if not with precedence; and when they are willing to sleep, whisper many private lectures in their ears, which they would not listen unto: old strumpets shall be apt to negotiate betwixt young men and new married wives, to make sinful bargains: moreover, there are diverse which shall be● suspected to be honest, and though they be not so, yet shall they be glad to take the injury upon themselves.  
The same Bebellius, in his fecetiae, saith, that from women: themselves he hath received three things, in which there is no credit to be given unto them. First, when she weeps, because she can command tears at her will: next, if she feign herself to be sick, for there is no trust to be imposed upon her till thou seest her quite dead: and lastly, if having invited her friends unto a great feast, she simper or eat nothing, 〈◊〉 is to be presumed that she ●ath first dined in the kitchen, or else she hath reserved th● choicest bit of all, to please her own palate after the guests be departed.  
Four things ●ill a man before his time; a sad or sorrowful family, meat or drink immoderately taken, a pestilent air, and a fair wife. Four other things we are also to take gre●● care, that we forbear: first, how we read another 〈◊〉 letters, the contents nothing concerning us; next how we meddle with any thing in a Smith's shop, lest 〈◊〉 burn our fingers; then to b● careful what we taste 〈…〉 light upon poison; lastly, how we adventure upon any woman, to grow into any private familiarity with her, whose condition● we know not. Others have a proverb frequent in their mouths, that those men grow soon rich, whose Bees prosper and their wives perish; or whose sheep and oxen thrive with them, and their ●ives fail them.  
If a man would have an exact wife, endowed with all the gifts of nature, the better to dec●re her, she must have an hand from Prague, a face from Britain or England, breasts from Austria, a belly from France, a back from Brabant, white thighs and hands from Colonia Agrippina, feet from the Rhine, pudibu●da from Bavaria, and nates from Suevia. But from the constitution of the body, I come now to the condition of the mind.  
As there are many sorts of wives, so there are many kinds of husbands: as one for instance (I begin with the country.) A plain country fellow, upon some extraordinary occasion coming from plough before his hour, found a young 〈◊〉 his neighbour's son, 〈◊〉 busy with his wife, and came suddenly upon them before they could any way evade it; which he seeing, said to his wife, O sweet heart, what is this I see? couldst thou not have picked out a more private place then this? I'll put it to thyself, how scurvily would this have shown, if any stranger but myself had come in, and seen what I do how? and with this gentle admonition departed 〈◊〉.  
But all husbands (as I said before) are not of the like temper; for instance: An handsome country-wife, and well reputed of amongst her neighbours, used every night as soon as her husband came to bed, to catechise him, what company he had kept? and how he had spent the day? and still used to keep him waking past midnight, when the poor honest man, who had traveled hard all the day, had rather been at rest; and that she would have read him asleep. But at length observing that she was somewhat precisely given, and that she used often to go to confession, he began to consider what great sins she might be guilty of, of which she need so often to desire absolution: and to that purpose watching the time when she used to go unto her Confessor, he had gotten into the Church before, and privately hid himself, so near to the Altar that he might easily hear whatsoever passed betwixt them: and when amongst other quotidian (or as some call them venial sins:) she began to proceed further, and say that she had committed adultery with such a man so often, and so often with such a neighbour: her Confessor began with her and said, indeed sister the sin of adultery is a great and heinous crime▪ and therefore leaving the rest, I will begin to allot you penance for that: at which word the fellow rising out) of his place 〈◊〉, No good Sir you shall not need to do that, I pray you absolve her of all the rest of her sins, but for tha● of adultery i'll give her such penance i'll warrant her, that she shall not need complain, and desire other from you: so taking her by the arm led her home and basted her sound.  
Poggius the Florentine, an excellent Orator, in his F●cetiis, reporteth this story. A woman amongst us (saith ●e) 〈◊〉 so contrary unto her husband in all things, that whatsoever she had said, how absurd, ●oever it 〈◊〉▪ 〈…〉 maintain it even to death; who scolding and bitterly railing against her husband, one day amongst many other ●●veries which she gave him to wear for her sake, she called him lousy knave▪ 〈◊〉 which words 〈◊〉 wondrous 〈◊〉, he beat her with his 〈◊〉, and ●ickt her with his heels; 〈…〉: 〈…〉 so tired himself with ●ea●ing her, that he was 〈◊〉 able to lift his arm so high 〈◊〉 his head, and yet vowing to himself that he would then get the must●ry or never, he b●th aught himself of another 〈◊〉, and tying her fast to a cord, let 〈◊〉 down into a Well, there threatening to drown 〈◊〉 unless she would 〈◊〉 that language: but the more 〈◊〉 menaced her, the lowde● 〈◊〉 talked, not changing a syllable: at length he 〈…〉 body so far as to the 〈◊〉, and yet nothing was in he● mouth but lousy 〈◊〉, which she often repeated; he then ducked her over head and ears; when not being able to speak because the water choked her, what ash could not do with her tongue she expressed with her● fingers, and holding her arms above water, by joining the nails of her two thumbs together, she did that in action, which she was not able to deliver in words; in so much that her 〈◊〉 obstinacy prevailing above his punishment, he was forced to draw her 〈◊〉 again, being ever after a subject to her morosity and 〈…〉 Another Country 〈◊〉 wife, when no Lecture she could read unto her husband (though 〈…〉 him with many▪ and those not empty of variety) could prevail with him, when she found that she 〈◊〉 not able to being him 〈◊〉 her own bow, in a 〈◊〉 malicious despair 〈…〉 river side, and leap● 〈◊〉, and so drowned she. At length the place being showed to the good man where she plunged in, 〈◊〉 her body not appearing 〈◊〉 the water, he 〈◊〉 drag for i● against the stream; but his neighbours advising him not to take that course, but rather to search for her with the stream; he made answer, My good neighbours no such matter, for know that in her life time she was so obstinate, froward, and contrary to all reason, that even in death her very body must needs swim against the tide, though it be preposterous against nature.  
This calls to my remembrance that of the Cynic D●ogenes, who was wont to 〈◊〉, he allowed of them who were in a readiness to sail upon the sea, but sailed not▪ who were about to gi●e other men's children their breeding, but bred them not; who advised with themselves to take upon them the affairs of the Commonweal, but took them not; and who was always towards wiving, but wedded not: intimating those persons to be wise who run not rashly into such things of which they have not before made proof and trial. For when men are once entered into them, they forfeit their own liberty, as not able to retract or withdraw themselves at their pleasure. Whoso committeth himself to the mercy of the seas, must stand to the grace of the winds and weather: whoso undergoeth public office or magistracy, cannot at his will 〈◊〉 himself to a private state and condition of living: and whosoever marrieth a wife, if he be said not 〈…〉.  
The same Philosopher 〈◊〉 a very fair woman 〈◊〉 in a● horse 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉, he said to one that stood by him, Now surely another cage than that had been more 〈…〉 of that kind: noting that such froward creatures as some women be, are more fitting to look out of a grate than a casement. The Lectica in Greece, which I here call a horselitter, was a certain manner of ●eat near unto that fashion; in which noble women and great Ladies w●re used to be born through the streets, not by horses, but upon some six men's shoulders; being made with Lattice windows, and grates cro●●e-barred; which our late Sedans in some things imitate. Those casements were to open and shut at pleasure, that they might look and be seen, or not: so that it showed and represented to the eye the manner and likeness of a cage for birds, or a pen, in which to keep diverse strange beasts: which was in great frequency among the Grecians. And in such did the wives of the Areopagitas, or chief Senators, and other great Ladies use to be borne through the streets; and in imitation of them, oftentimes loose and wanton damsels: for great persons cannot devise that for state, which the proud (how poor soever) will not strive to imitate.  
I have read further, of a Countryman, who had a notorious scold to his wife; and whether he came from the market, or from the field; or whether he sat down to meat, or prepared himself for bed, she was always thundering in his ears: nay she would not cease doctrinating him in his neighbour's house, but home and abroad were both alike u●●to her; and still the more he threatened or cudgeled her, her contumelious railing was still more insolent and l●wd, abusing him in language by no allowance. At length he thought to try conclusions, and provided himself of an harsh tuned pipe, on which he could not play any thing that tended to music; and ever when she began to s●old, he straight without any reply began to play, but so untunably and shrill, that it almost drowned her language: this fretted her worse, in regard that he● gave her no other answer at all, whereby to give her matter to work upon, in so much that for very anger and despite she left off railing, and fell to skipping and dancing: of which being weary, as having tired herself, she flew up to his face, other (having a shrew to his wife); I marry Gossip, this is a good sight, it were happy for us in the country if all the rest of our trees had the like fruit hanging upon them. I conclude this chapter with that of juvenal in his 6. satire.  
The marriage bed hath seldom yet been free  
From mutual brawls and nuptial calumny;  
Sleep in their resting place hath no abiding,  
She'll keep thee waking with continual chiding.  
Jealous she must be thou hast gone astray,  
Then worse than Tigers (who have lost their prey)  
She rageth, and t'encourage this debate,  
Those children she best loves she'll seem to hate.  
Some strumpet she will fashion in her mind,  
And swear that thou to her art far more kind.  
With one or other she up braids thee still,  
Then weeps amain, for sh● hath tears at will.   

CHAP. VIII.  
The love that ought to be betwixt man and wife. Why women speak more and louder than men. Of a 〈◊〉 married wife. Divers other Histories of pleasant passages in the country.  
A Question being asked, why our first and great Grandmother Evah, was rather in her formacio● taken out of the side of Adam, than any other part of his body? It was thus learnedly answered: Because the side is the middle of the body, to signify that the woman is of equal dignity with the man; and therefore she was taken not from the head, nor the foot; for she must not be superior or inferior unto him. It is probable also that she was taken out of the left side: for the heart of man inclineth that way, rather than to the other; to denote unto us, that man and woman should embrace each other with an hearty and entire love: and as the left side is the weakest, so the woman made from thence, is the weaker ve●●ell. Also all male children are conceived in the right side, and the females in the left: and as the sides are defended by the arms, so ought a woman to be by her husband.  
Another demanding a question, why women were more apt to talk, and for the most part, make a greater & louder noise than men? Answer was returned, that for that there was very great reason to be given: for saith he, we know that Adam the first man was created from the dust of the earth, which is of its own nature, soft, pliant & tractable, and in the handling yieldeth no noise or sound at all: but the woman was made of a rib (a bone taken out of Adam's side) which is of a much harder temper. Now for example, take a bushel bag or a quarter sack, and fill it with dust, or with flesh, and tumble it or toss it which way you please, no echo ariseth from thence at all; but empty them, and fill them with bones, and so shake and bowlt them together, and you sh●ll then hear what a rattling they will keep.  
Of a more gentle disposition than those before remembered, was she of whom I now am to speak, who instead of a Curtain Lecture, read by her to her husband, had a strange one read to her; the manner whereof followeth. Not far from Reevilling, a Town under the Imperial jurisdiction, a very fair country wench, but very simple withal, who was newly married to one of the young rustics there by, some quarter of a year after she had been married, came to a Friar to be confessed, who casting an adulterous eye upon her, and finding her by her simple answer to be none of the wisest: the business which she came for, being quickly run over, he presently fell upon another matter, and told her that she was run into a great arrearage with him, for not paying him Tithes. The woman innocently demanded of him what Tithes were due to him? Marry saith he, for every nine nights which thou liest with thy husband, the tenth is due to me. Truly Sir, replied she, I pray you to excuse mine ignorance, and heaven forefend but whatsoever should be due unto you from me, should be fully satisfied. At which he retired her into a sequestered place, and there abused her honest simplicity. After which returning back to her house, she began modestly to chide her husband, who would not tell her of those duties and tithes due to the Friar her Confessor, and so told him all the whole circumstances before related. The man said little, knowing the weakness of his Wife, and loath to have his own shame to be made public, yet vowing revenge in heart; and fearing that being a Churchman, upon his complaint the Friar might find some favour with the great ones, he bethought himself of a safer course, and resolved withal to be his own justicer: for, dissembling the matter, and taking no notice at all of any such thing as passed betwixt the Friar and his Wife, he made means to infinuate into his more familiar acquaintance; to which the Friar most willingly assented, because under that colour he might have the freer and less suspicious consociety with his Wife. Upon this new acquaintance, the rustic invited him to dinner, and desired him to come alone; which was a motion that he willingly embraced. The day was appointed, and good cheer provided: now the good man commanded his Wife to reserve all the water she made for two days together, and keep it in a vessel by itself; which was accordingly done: he invites two or three of his neighbours, whom he durst best trust. The Friar keepeth his appointment, the dinner is served in, and he set betwixt a couple of them so close that there was no rising from the table without leave: the first trenchers were not changed, but the good man takes a deep bowl, and drinketh it off to the Friars welcome (of wine good and wholesome:) the Friar vows to pledge him supernaculum, and still casting a leering eye upon the woman, which the Host very well observed; he whispereth to have the Friar's bowl brimmed with his Wife's urine: which he taking and tasting, spit it out and said, Now fie, what tart and unpleasant wine is this? if I should drink it, it would poison me. The good man replied, Doth not then this wine taste you well? He replied, No by no means: No, saith the Host? I'll assure you it was drawn out of the same vessel from which you received your Tithes; and either drink it off at one carouse, or be assured that it is the l●st you shall ever swallow. By which the Friar finding his former villainy discovered, took it off at a draught, concluding with a sour sauce his former sweet bargain: and being dismissed thence without any other violence, vowed to himself, never to come under that man's roof after.  
I have read of a fellow who traveled a great part of the world over with a pair of boots, which he had vowed to part with to no man, but such a one as had an absolute power and Empire over his wife: he had passed through many Countries, and offered them to all that he met, but no man was either willing, or else durst not accept them upon these conditions: at length meeting with a stout fellow, a Blacksmith, he asked him if he would receive them upon the covenant aforesaid? who answered that he would, and wear them in despite of all the women in Europe: (now the Smith had put on a clean shirt that morning) Upon this answer the Traveller replied, Then Friend, here take them to thee, put them into thy bosom, and bear them home. The Smith replied, Not so, I know a trick worth two of that: if I should put them into my bosom, and dirty my clean shirt, my wife would not be well pleased with that, for we should have no quietness in the house for all this day. Which the other hearing, snatched them away from him, and said, Get thee hence in an evil hour, who goest about to cheat me, being, as all others, afraid of thy wives scolding; and so left him: nor have I heard whether he hath yet delivered them unto any even to this day.  
A Country fellow having married a substantial Farmer's daughter, found her within a twelvemonth to prove not only an archscold, still thundering in his ears, but very lascivious and unchaste, of which he had manifest and infallible proofs; and therefore he took occasion to complain to his father-in-law both of the morosity and inchastity of his daughter. To whom the good man gave this comfort; Son, I advise you to have patience, and be content for a time: she is her mother's daughter right, for just such an one was she in her youth, for I could neither govern her tongue, nor— but now she is grown old, there is not a more quiet and chaste Matron amongst all her neighbours: therefore arm yourself with patience as I did, and I make no question but when the daughter shall arrive unto her mother's age, your wife will prove as tractable and quiet as mine is now; and with this cold comfort dismissed him:  
Another Rustic being married to a very handsome piece, grew jealours of a young fellow a Farmer's son, his neighbour (and he had diverse times upbraided her with him:) at length being angry, she bid him not to fear any such matter betwixt them, and protested, she had rather prostitute herself to ten Gentlemen, than to one such clown as himself, or him whom he had so often cast in her teeth.  
Another Country woman, following her husband to his grave, not only wept and wrung her hands, but tore her hair from her head, uttering such loud cries and ejulations, that she was much pitied, in regard they feared that the very sorrow for his death would distract her of her senses. Divers came about her to comfort her, and they had much ado to keep her from leaping into his grave. The like she did coming back. At length one that was a widower, and well known unto her, stepped towards her to lead her home by the arm, and spoke diverse comfortable words unto her. To whom she answered, No, she was undone for ever, for she was left a lone woman, and a widow, and had none to manage her affairs, or to guide her family. Who replied, Let not that be your care, I am, you know, a widower, and if it please you to accept of me, my suit is, that I may be your second husband. To whom she still weeping and howling made answer, I thank you neighbour for your good will and friendly offer, but indeed you speak too late, for I have already past my faith and promise to another.  
One related unto me of one who pretended great purity and modesty, who could not endure any uncivil speech or obscene talk, and one indeed whom all the young men desired their wives to pattern themselves by; she being brought to bed of a boy, which was her first child, as soon as the child was borne, all the women came about it, and every one gave their censure of him, and concluded, it was ● sweet babe, and like the father: which she hearing, rousing herself as well as she was able, said, Why I pray you neighbours, hath it a shaved crown? which put them in mind of a young Friar who had often before frequented the house.  
A Rustic having the day before beaten his wife for reading a Lecture unto him somewhat too loud, sent her the next day with a Sow to the market to sell. Her way lying through a park or thick wood, and she driving the Swine before her with a cord tied to the hinder leg, a young Clown of her former acquaintance, and who had long been a suitor to her to corrupt her chastity (but never prevailing) overtook her just as she was entering into the thicket; and having first given her the good morrow, began earnestly to importune her about his former fuit, alleging, amongst other things, the opportunity of time and place but she still obstinately denied him, and in such rigorous words, that seeing her resolution, he forbore to speak of it any further, and began to talk of other things. But when she perceived they were almost out of the forest, and that they were ready to come into the open fields, and remembering how churlishly her husband had dealt with her the day before, she began thus to break with him, and say, You spoke unto me even now of a business I know not what, and urged me to a thing which I may be sorry for I know not when; but if I should now be so mad or foolish to yield to your request, I pray you in the mean time where can you find a tree in all this 〈◊〉 to which to tie the Sow? Which being apprehended by the other, she found occasion to revenge herself upon her husband. And this is grown to be a common Proverb in other Countries, But if I should be so foolish as to yield unto you, where in the mean time can you find a fit tree to which to tie the Sow? From the Country I come now to the City.   

CHAP. IX.  
How Curtain Lectures are read in the City, and how severally read by sundry Tradesmen's wives, with variety of delightful histories to that purpose.  
THere be four things (saith mine Author) which women most covet; To be beloved of young men, To be the mothers of fine children, To wear rich and costly clothes, and to domineer and bear rule in their houses.  
A Tailor in the City, who kept his wife very gallant (who was indeed a very choice girl, and well became those clothes which she wore) before he had been married a full twelvemonth, perceiving diverse young Citizens, and other Gallants, often to pass by his door, and sometimes make impertinent business to his house, he thinking to prevent the worst, called up his wife one day into a private chamber, and began to question her about sundry things, of which the woman was merely innocent: all this would not persuade the man, but being absolutely jealous of her honesty, he began to school her in very rough and course language; which wakened a fire in her bosom which till then lay hid, and now broke forth at her tongue. Then she told him what matches she might have had when she was a maid, and what fortunes she had neglected in making choice of him▪ how she might have been married to a man, and now she had cast herself away upon a Tailor; with the like: in so much that when she had once begun she knew not how to make an end, but called him fool, and jealous coxcomb, putting him to such a silence, that he had not one word to utter; but waiting till the storm was over, he then began to flatter her, and give her the best language that he could devise, with which they were reconciled between themselves, and made friends.  
He then began to break with her further, that for their continuance of love, and to avoid all suspicion or controversy that might after arise betwixt them, she would swear unto certain Articles which he would propound unto her? Who answered, she would with all her heart; but upon condition, that afterall, he would swear her also to one thing which herself would propound. Who gladly answered that he would. This being constantly agreed betwixt them, he began thus; Sweet wife, will you never depart over this threshold without my leave, but acquaint me first with the business which you go about? Who answered him, Sweet husband I will. Next saith he, Will you never offer to cast a wanton glance upon any man? Or whosoever shall offer to tempt your chastity, to deliver unto me his name? Willingly, saith she. Will you also swear, saith he, whilst you live to be true 〈◊〉 my bed, and never 〈◊〉 that conjugal tie 〈◊〉 is passed betwixt u●? Who answered, With all my heart. And observing his palpable jealousy, asked him if these were all? Who answered, Yes: and withal sweet wife (saith he) now what is that further which you de●ire that I should bind you to by oath? Who replied, Only this sweet husband, that after these oaths taken, you will swear me that I shall not keep any one of these articles which you would have me sworn to. Which said, she stepped out of the chamber, down into the kitchen, and left him ruminating upon this answer.  
Another Tradesman's wife (for I will name no particular Trade, to avoid offence) her husband being at a Fair in the Country, the Foreman of his shop, whom he had left to manage his affairs at home, cast many a wanton look upon his Mistress, and she failed not to answer him with the like: at length he put on that audacity to move her in the business, but she counterfeited anger, and seemed altogether averse to his suit, threatening him, if he persisted to prosecute it any further, she would acquaint his Master with it at his coming home; which made him at that time to urge it no further. But still such interchange of wanton glances continued betwixt them, that it emboldened him in a second encounter: in which he desired her to take the advantage of his Master's absence; but still she answered him with No; till at length he urging still further, from No she said nothing at all; which gave him such encouragement, that the same night, leaving his Mistress making herself unready in the kitchen, he stole into her chamber, and stripping himself, got into the bed, and covered himself over head and ears. At length up comes his Mistress, and having locked her chamber fast to her, unclothes herself to her next linen; and before the candle was out, opening the bed to step in, spied him as he lay: at which she began to rate him, and called him all the bad names she could (but softly:) at which the fellow, fearing she would have called out, and made an uproar in the house, and so have taken him before he was napping, desired her of pardon, and said he would willingly rise and go from thence unto his own chamber. To whom she replied; Fellow, thou dost not hear me talk of thy rising, nor of thy going hence to thine ow● chamber, for it is not that which I speak of; but it is thy sauciness and boldness that I blame, who wouldst offer to creep into thy Master's place without the consent of thy Mistress. Well, for this time I pardon thee, but charge you, without first getting my good will, to do so no more hereafter; and without more words put out the candle, and went to bed to him.  
The like to this was related me of another, who importuned his mistress to lewdness in the absence of his master; to which act she would no way appear to give any consent at all: but he thinking to prove her to the full, told her that he had vowed to steal into her chamber that night, nay more, into her bed. Wilt thou saith she? do it then upon thine own peril, and I will leave the door open a purpose; but withal I tell thee before hand, I will lay a knife ready drawn under my bed's head, with which (if thou offerest to enter) I will kill thee. Night came, and she stripped herself, put out the candle, and went to bed: anon after in comes he▪ and softly stealing (whilst she counterfeited a sound and dead sleep) to the bed side, he began to open the sheets, but finding her not to move at all, doubted to enter, left being suddenly started, she with the knife might do him a mischief; and therefore thought to go ●oftly out as he came in: which she perceiving, as if she had suddenly awaked out of sleep, asked, Who art thou? who is there? He answered again, It is I. What I, saith she again? So he told her his name. And what's your business here at this time of the night? Marry saith he, I had thought to have come to bed to you, but that I durst not for your knife, and therefore I am going hence: which hearing, she replied, Now beast that I was to forget the knife, and leave it below in the kitchen; and therefore if thou shouldest stay and venture, there could be no great danger in it.  
A lusty stout fellow in the Suburbs having a cursed shrew to his wife, for all his valour could never master her tongue, but early and late she would so whisper in his ears, that all the whole street might ring of her. At length he beat her so sound, that she durst not thunder unto him for some weeks after; in so much that he verily presumed he had got the victory over her, and so he sticked not to boast to all his neighbours about: which vexed her not a little, and therefore she thought in herself, to be revenged upon him at one time or other, and for that she but waited for some fit opportunity or other. 〈◊〉 happened that upon a summer evening, he and his Wife, sitting amongst others of the neighbours and their wives, she made the motion that they should go to a sport called All-hid, which is a mere children's pastime; to which they, then being set upon a merry pin, agreed. Now she had persuaded her husband to creep into a Sack, which he, in regard of her late conformity suspecting nothing, was willing to do: and when she had tied the Sacks mouth fast, she called in two or three of her like conditioned Gossips, to whom she had acquainted her project, and they every one with a good cudgel did so baste the gentleman, that he thought his very bones to rattle in his skin; and notwithstanding all his entreaty or fair promises, they would not let him out, or suffer him to take breath, till he had sworn unto them, not to take up so much as a small stick to strike her ever after; to which (being almost stifled) he was forced to swear; nor did he offer the lest blow after, in regard of his oath. But not long after, a great Wedding being kept in that street, and he and his wife invited amongst the rest, after dinner they fell to dance: amongst the rest he took his wife to task, and being in a measure where the men are to take the women in their arms, and lift them up from the ground, he took up his wife, and turning round with her till he came to the top of the stairs, and then letting her fall headlong, she tumbled down to the bottom, and great odds she had not broke her neck; and this he did laughing. But such was her good fortune that she was only bruised, as he had before been beaten; and finding it no advantage for her further to contend with him, she submitted herself, and he accepted of her submission; which on both sides was so unfeignedly done, that they lived in great unity and love all the rest of their life after.  
But not altogether to tyre the Reader with quarrelling and scolding: I was told of a very fair virgin of the City, who by her father's enforcement (but far against her own mind) was compelled to matched with an ancient and grave Citizen; who finding her sitting very sad and pensive the same day of her marriage, came to comfort her: and grasping her about the waste, said, Be of good cheer my fair wife, an old horse will travel and go through a long journey as well as a young. At which words she fetching a grea● sigh, and laying her hand upon the bottom of her belly, said, I, but I fear Sir, not in this road way.  
Another Tradesman having a drunken quean to his wife, whom he could never keep from the alehouse, but whatsoever he got she was ready to spend: or if she had no money, she would pawn whatsoever was about the house; and sittippling among her Gossips, sometimes till past midnight, & then be led home, or carried when her own legs were not able to bear her. And he having read many a Lecture unto her (as telling her what a loathsome sin drunkenness was, that the end thereof was no other than hell fire, with the like good admonitions, but all in vain. Upon a night, when with Ale and hot waters she was so overcome, that she was brought home both speechless and senseless, he thought to try a conclusion, if possible it were to ●eforme it in her: and causing her to be laid upon a cold earthen floor, he made a great fire, which compassed her about, and calling in his neighbours, for whom he had provided (as for himself) fury's coats, and every one with a firebrand in his hand, attending her awaking; who by reason of the heat which compassed her, roused her somewhat before her time, and looking about her, she began verily to think she was in Hell fire, with which her husband had so often before threatened her, and the rather, because so many like Devils stood about her: then fetching a deep sigh, the first words she uttered were, Alas poor wretched soul that I am, to be thus encompassed with the flames of Hell: Is there never a ghost amongst you all so thirsty as I am now, that will join their penny with mine, that we may send for a double pot of Ale? At which the neighbours breaking out into a loud laughter, they discovered themselves unto her; and finding her no way to be reclaimed, got her to bed, and left her to be a perpetual torment to the honest man her husband.  
〈◊〉 hath been related to me, that in the time of auricular confession, three young Citizens wives came to a devoute man, who was their ghostly Father, to be shriven: and he demanding of them what grievous ●ins they had committed, saith the first, The greatest sin that I suppose myself to be guilty of, was that upon a time, I took a strange knife which was not mine own, and put it into my sheath. The good man not much considering upon the matter, but thinking that young timorous women would take the least error to be a very heinous offence, past it slightly over, and demanded of the second, How she had offended? Who made answer that she had put two into hers: he passed her over with the like slightness, and demanded the like of the third? Who made answer that indeed she was guilty of putting three knives into hers. Is this all said he? They answered, Yes. Then, saith he, I will dispatch you presently, and having quickly absolved the two first, and coming to the third, he began to consider with himself, what sheath it was which should hold three knives, when he never saw any that held more than two and a bodkin; and asked her what she meant by those knives? To whom she plainly answered, that three several men had had the use of her body, besides her husband: when presently finding the error, he called the former whom he had ignorantly absolved, and said, Get you hence for, three pestilent and cunning baggages; I absolve none of you all, you have confessed amiss: What, would you make me believe, that betwixt Penis and Cultellus is no difference? And so unshriven in a great anger he dismissed them.   

CHAP. X.  
Pleasant discourse betwixt a Noble man and a Merchant. Lectures read by country Gentlewomen and Ladies to their husbands. By the soldier's wife, to her Captain or Lieutenant. And of Court Ladies to their Lords.  
A Nobleman and a worthy Merchant jesting together freely, without any exceptions to be taken, saith the Nobleman to him, I wonder at you Merchants, who for the most part have very beautiful and fair wives, that dare trust them here at home, whilst you take such long voyages into Countries so far remote: surely it cannot choose but be a great trouble to your minds being abroad, for fear they should violate their conjugal tie at home: when we Noblemen deal more securely; for if we take a journey either from the Court to the Country, or from the Country up to the Court, we leave our Ladies well accommodated & guarded by Servants, Grooms, and Pages. The Merchant perceiving how he played upon him, said unto him again (by your Lordship's favour, and without offence be it spoken) How comes it to be a proverb, that Nobleman's children are not (for the most part) so well featured and favoured, as the sons and daughters of Citizens? If your Lordship will not be offended, I can show you the reason. I pray thee do, saith the Noble man, I give thee free leave and liberty to speak. Then thus, saith the Merchant, In the absence of all such Merchants as have houses in the City, it being so populous, there are choice either of young Alderman's sons, or of such lusty young Gallants as use to insidiate the chastities of beautiful women in the absence of their husbands; and they having their choice, will commonly pick out the properest men to transgress with; and so betwixt them cometh a fair and well featured issue: when you Noblemen taking your journeys, take all your Gentlemen along to attend you, leaving none with your Ladies, but a Chamberlain, Cook, or a Coachman, and they in your absence being glad to make use of such course grooms, I suppose that may be the reason why your children are not so fair and well favoured as ours. At which answer, the Nobleman smiled, and taking the retort as well as the Merchant did the jest put upon him at first, they parted without any further exception. But ere I come to the Court, I must first look back upon the, Country, and see how the Gentlewoman there bred useth to lecture to her Esquire or Knight: and after how the Soldier's wife useth to read to her Lieutenant o● Captain.  
An Esquires wife, being an excellent housewife, but of a very loud tongue withal, used to tax him for being too free in his kitchen, cellar and at his table; for keeping too many inpertinent servants, too many horses and dogs, hounds, greyhouds and spaniels, hawks, etc. which drew him to unnecessary charges. Then laid the law to him, what he might save in the year, which he vainly and profusely wasted; with diverse other things to the like purpose, with so often iteration (as preaching still upon one text) both at board and in bed, that tired with her continual clamours, and withal she often forbearing his embraces, unless he would reform all things according to her mind, and leave all his estate to her sole management, he grew not to love her so well as at the first, and casting his eye upon a pretty slut, his Gardeners wife, he neglecting his own, grew very much enamoured of her, but durst not come to the house, by reason of his wife's jealousy; yet he wrought so by one of his servants, who dealt for him to the woman, that she was willing to yield to any thing to do her Master a pleasure, so it might be done safely, and without suspicion, either from her husband or her mistress. It was then concluded, that they should meet in a lodge some half a mile from the Manor house, and to that purpose, he had sent his Gardener some twenty miles out of the town; and the better to convey her thither, he commanded his man to provide a large basket into which to put the woman, and cover it with strewing flowers, herbs, and salads; which was accordingly done. The Master of the house got up early to keep this appointment: so was the Mistress to dog her husband, as mistrusting his early rising: and in the way meets this fellow with his basket, the bottom of which, by reason of the weight of the woman, was quite broken, and her legs and feet hung down below his knees: which she perceiving, called the fellow unto her, and asked him what he had in his basket? Salads Mistress; saith he: Salads, and nothing else? Nothing Mistress, saith he, but herbs and salads. Well saith she, carry them to your Master, and tell him from me, this is a fish day, and bid him beware what flesh he tasteth with those salads. The fellow nothing perceiving all this while▪ makes way to the lodge, and delivers his burden; the Gentlewoman follows, and before her Husband discovers the woman. The cause was at first somewhat bitterly debated betwixt them; but all the choler being vented, they fell to a more mild atonement: in which it was concluded, He would ever after forsake his lust, so long as she would forbear her Lecture.  
A Knight's wife in the Country was perfect in the same doctrine, and read it as freely as the former; and tiring him one morning with a tale of an hour long, he not interrupting her in one syllable, she vexing all this while that he made her no answer, at length for mere weariness she gave over. Then he knocked as loud as he could, till one came up: he than commanded him to call up the servants of the house, man-servants and maidservants, up into the chamber, and that instantly: who presently ran down as he was commanded; she in the mean time wondering what it might mean: (I forgot to tell you that he bade them to bring their Church books with them.) Well, all of them came up thus accommodated, and demanded what his Worship's pleasure was? Marry (saith he) this was the cause I sent for you, my wife hath preached to me a very learned Sermon, in which she borrowed somewhat of the hourglass, and exceeded her time, and it is but now ended, and I desire it may not go off without a Psalm; and therefore saith he (and was going on) when she interrupting him, said, Get you all down about your several affairs, and that I charge you instantly, or you shall hear from me in another kind. Which they incontinently did: when she, ashamed of the ●ricke he had put upon her, desired him to use it or the like no more, and she would never trouble him either in his night's sleep or his morning's rest after.  
I come now to the Soldier's wife. It is recorded of a brave and noble Captain to have a brawling shrew to his wife, from which turbiflency he could by no gentle means reclaim her; and therefore he so awed her with threats and menaces, and now and then with a kick or a blow, that she was forced to give her unseasonable Lectures quite over. Then she going often to confession, still when she came to her ghostly father, in stead of her own faults reckoned up all that she either knew or could devise of her husband. In so much that the good man meeting with the Captain, gave him courteous admonitory counsel, as to leave drinking, swearing, rioting, and the like; by which the Captain might perceive that some or other had complained of him. Not long after, the woman insinuates with her husband, that for any thing that had ever past betwixt them either in words or blows, in which she was the sole sufferer, she did heartily forgive him, and desired the like forgiveness from him, if by her loud tongue she had any way offended him, promising a reformation of all her misdemeanours for ever after; and therefore that lasting unity might continue betwixt them, she desired him to go to her ghostly father, and heartily confess him of his sins, which would be a mean to ratify and confirm all conjugal love betwixt them. The Captain was persuaded, and went, and coming before the grave Churchman, told him he was desired to come unto him, and now being here (saith he) I would know what your will is with me. Who said, I would wish you to consider with yourself, and rub up your remembrance, and calling to mind all your sins and offences, riots and disorders, and what else; for which (repenting of them unfeignedly) I will give you present absolution. Nay if that be all (said the Captain) that labour is saved already, and needs no second iteration; I know you are my wife's Confessor, and she hath told unto you all my sins, and more than I ever did or thought to do already: and so bluntly left him.  
A brave Lieutenant amongst many other wounds lost an eye in the wars, and afterward retiring himself into his own Country, where he had some means to live on, bethought himself, after all those tumultuous dangers passed, to betake himself to a peaceable and quiet life; and to that purpose intended to marry. A match was presently offered him, a Virgin (supposed) both of good feature and competent dower. The marriage day came, and was passed with great joy and solemnity, and the Bride and Bridegroom (according to the custom) brought to their bed. The curtains were drawn, and they left to their rest; when he coming to do the office of an husband, perceived she had been before devirginated, and was not a true maid; and thrusting her from him in great anger, said, A way thou strumpet, I took thee for a perfect Virgin, and now I find thee to be a woman flawed and unperfect. Who boldly answered him again▪ And is not the match equal▪ since I have accepted of the● being maimed, and wanting one eye? But (replied he) I received my hurt from mine enemy. And I (answered she) received th●● which so much troubles thee from my best friend.  
I must be sparing to speak of the Court: yet no question even your Court Ladies are women, and have tongues, though they know by their noble breeding better how to govern them, than others, who have not had their generous education and breeding. Amongst the rest, I have read one short story in an approved Author, that a Basketmaker in the country, having with his best care and cunning made an end of an extraordinary Basket, which had been bespoke, & finding it finished to his own desire and fancy, (his wife then sitting by him) he said, Now God be thanked, I have finished my Basket, and I pray thee wife say so too. But she being refractory and obstinate, held her tongue; and the more he entreated her, the more adverse she was to him, giving him foul and course language. Which 〈◊〉 not able to endure, fell upon her with a good cudgel, and beat her till she was forced to cry out. A Noble man coming then by accidentally, with a great train a● his heels, finding her weeping, began at first to commiserate the woman, and to chide the man for striking her: but being by him truly informed of the cause, he commended the fellow for justly correcting her dis●● bedience, and told her 〈◊〉 had her mends in her 〈◊〉 hands: so left them; and rid home to his house. At supper he related all the circumstance (before discoursed) to his Lady, and asked her opinion of the matter. Who answered, The Basketmaker was a Knave to offer to beat his wife upon so slight an occasion. Who replied unto her, Why Madam, would you be so perverse and obstinate unto me, if I should command you to speak these words? Indeed my Lord, answered she, I would. How, saith he? I charge you to say these words before all this company, God be thanked, I have finished my Basket. Who answered again, My Lord I will die before I will do it. At which he mightily enraged; rose from the table, and taking a battoon in his hand, had he not been held by main force by his noble guests and his Gentlemen about him, there had been as grea● a fray betwixt them, as there was with the Basketmaker and the shrew his wife. Now what manner of Lecture she read after to her Lord I cannot relate, being than not present to hear it.   

CHAP. XI.  
Twelve things that have been the Authors of much mischief. Of the famous and notorious scold Xantippe. A Curtain Lecture read by a Queen to her Husband, worthy all women's imitation.  
TWelve things have been the Authors of much mischief: Age without wisdom: Prudence without employment: A Master of an house without a family: Pride without riches: Riches without honour: Nobility without virtue: A people without awe: A City without Laws: Office without clemency: Youth without fear: A religious life without peace: A woman without shame.  
And such an one was Xantippe, the wife of Socrates; of whom we will speak something, only to show that there have been scolds of old as there be now. Some report that he kept two wives at once, the one Myrtho, the other the aforenamed Xantippe. And to a friend of his, earnestly demanding why he kept two such women at once, under one roof; especially being scolding queans, ever brawling and chiding, and did not beat them out of his doors, and confine them his family? he made answer, These women teach me at home, the patience that I must use in sufferance abroad: for being throughly exercised with these, I shall be the better able to endure the morosity of others.  
Upon a time, when Xantippe in the open Market place had plucked his cloak from his back, and such of his friends as saw it, said unto him, Why Socrates do you not correct this impudent outrage in her, and chastise her sound for it? replied to t●em, Yea marry, that were a jest indeed, that when we two be together by the ears, all the whole market folk looking uponus, may cry, Hold thine own Socrates, To him Xantippe: by which means we shall be made a derision to all men.  
Another time, one Euthidemus a Philosopher, and one of his most intimate friends, coming from the wrestling place, S●crates meeting with him, invited him home to supper; the meat being set on the table, and they being in an earnest discourse, more minding to argue than to eat; Xantippe being therewith very angry, rose up from the place where she sat, and wished them choked with their prating, if they would not fall to their victuals whilst they were hot, giving her husband very bitter and despiteful words: but they by custom being nothing therewith moved, talked on: which she seeing, tipped up the table over and over, and flung down all that was upon it to the ground, and so went out of the room. But when Euthidemus, being very much moved therewith, offered to rise up and to depart the house: Nay stay good friend, saith Socrates, what harm hath she done? did not the like thing happen unto you the last time you bade me home to dinner, when an hen leaping up amongst us, cast down and spoilt whatsoever was upon the table? yet did we who were then your guests only laugh at the accident, and neither fret nor fume as you now seem to do.  
The same Socrates, after he had endured his wives bitter railing in the house, at last being wearied therewith, he went out, and sat upon a bench that sided the street door. She at his departure being much more incensed, in regard of his silence and quietness, as giving her no more argument to speak of; she presently (seeing where he sat) went up into the garret, and poured down a chamber pot full of stinking water upon his head: at which those that passed by fell into a great laughter; which seeing, he laughed as loud as they, & said, Nay, I thought verily, and was confident thereon, that after so loud thunder there must needs follow a violent shower of rain. But I have done with Socrates, wishing that all such as have the like shrews as he had, might be endued with the like patience to endure them.  
I come now (and that I propose to be the conclusion of this work) to tell you of a curtain Lecture, read by a virtuous Queen to the King her Husband; super-exceeding all the former, and worthy the observation and imitation of all good women, of what estate and condition soever. The History thus followeth.  
Amongst the Kings of Arragon, there was one Don Pedro (vulgarly Don Peter) the seventh of that name; but before his Inauguration, Count of Barcellonas', who took to wife a beautiful young Lady called Donna Maria, daughter to the Earl of Mount Pesulia, and Nephew to the Emperor of Constantinople; who notwithstanding she was plenally furnished with all the accomplishments both of nature and grace; as knowing that beauty annexed with virtue purchaseth praise with immortality, and that (as another saith) if chastity and good name be lost, there is nothing left in women that can be praiseworthy; and that she knew withal, that true virtue was the beauty of the soul, the grace of the body, and the peace of the mind; and that it might be said of her, as Seneca in Hercule Furente speaks of Megaera the wife of Hercules: 

Gravent Catenae corpu●, & long a fame  
Mors protrahatur lenta, non vincit fidem, etc.   

Although my body be oppressed with chains,  
And famine by a lingering death constrains  
My weary life, no violence shall decline  
My faith from thee, I'm still (Alcides) thine.    
Notwithstanding all this goodness inherent to her greatness, the dissolute King, growing neglectful of his first fair choice, bends his inordinate affections fully upon fresh change. He sleeps now only in the bosoms of Catamites, and base prostitutes; whilst her company and consociety is both at board and bed quite abandoned.  
But the good Queen, less troubled with the want of his board or bed fellowship, than grieved with the despair she had of hopeful and princely issue; knowing, as Basil saith, that barren marriage is seldom without brawls, she bethought herself, how by redeeming the one, she might recover the other. And to that purpose she dealt privately (being wondrously for her virtue's sake beloved of all) with one of the Pages of the King's bedchamber, whom he most employed in his private prostitutions, to bring her covertly to the King's bed, to supply the place appointed for one of his best loved mistresses. This was as effectually performed, as considerately plotted: so that the King once more enjoyed his Queen, and was as prodigal of those favours to her, as he pretended to another.  
The morning growing on, and he now sufficiently sated, hastens her departure, both for his own honour and her credit. But she taking hold of the present occasion, began to discover herself in these or the like words, and read unto him this short Lecture: My gracious Lord and Husband, if I have offended you in the fervency of my love, I here voluntarily submit my s●lfe to the tyranny of your hate: yet if it please you considerately to examine the cause of my hither com●ing, it was neither to quench any immoderate desire in myself, nor envy to intercept any of those favours you intended unto another: it was not lust, but love, hoping that this nights unexpected passage may bless us with issue, and beautify the Kingdom with a joyful heir. For why should strangers inherit, where there is yet hope left that we may have of our own to succeed. Nor will I leave your side till you call into your chamber some persons of honour and ●rust; to the end that if heaven be so gracious unto us, that royal fruit (by me so much desired) may ensue by this adventure, the world by their testimony may take notice, that it is legitimate, to crown me with the name of an happy Mother; and not adulterate, to brand me with the title of a lewd and lascivious strumpet.  
The King, though he seemed somewhat troubled at the first, yet better recollecting himself, was not any way displeased with the Q●eenes honest deceit: but presently called in two Gentlemen of his chamber, as witnesses of that truth; considering it touched his own honour as much as the Queen's desire. The event of this stratagem proved fortunate, both to the Parents and the kingdom: for by that meeting she conceived with child, and according to the season of women was delivered of a son, on the first day of February in the veer of Grace 1196. The Father and Mother, when the solemnity of his Baptism was to be celebrated, differing about the name, they caused twelve torches of equal length and making to be alighted at once, they bearing the names of the 12. Apostles; with this omen, that the name of that torch which was first burnt out, should be given to the Infant: which happened to be that of S. james; and so was he called james, being the chief Saint whom the Arragonians celebrate.  
He proved a rare and an unparallelled Prince, as well in foreign wars as domestic government: he was beneficial to his servants, and bountiful to his soldiers: his courage was full of constancy, and continued without change; proving such an one as Socrates' characters for valiant. Great attempts he undertook without diffidence, and managed them without fear. Making invasion upon the Moors, he pierced with a great army the I'll of Majorque, then in their possession, and after many skirmishes brought it under his own subjection. He invaded Carihage, and made his name famous in Africa.  
He had a fair and fertile issue, sons and daughters. His eldest was Don Peter, who succeeded him in the kingdom of Arragon: his second, Don james, whom he made King of the two Isles, Majorque and Minorque: his third was Archbishop of Toledo. His eldest daughter, Donna Tollant, was Queen of Castille: the second, Donna Isabel, Queen of France: the third, Donna Urracha, was married to Don Emanuel Prince of Castille. His son Don Pedro espoused the daughter of the King of Navarre. Great pity therefore it had been that the meeting of that happy night had been intermitted, in which the royal father of so kingly ● progeny was begot. He lived 72. years, and died religiously, retiring himself to a sequestered life. For being troubled with a grievous disease, which ma● him unable for government he disposed of his scep●● and estate, and expired in th● City Valentia in a Monastery, in the year 1266. abo● the beginning of August.  
I need not to have travell●● so far for an history to 〈◊〉 purpose, when our ow●● kingdom hath afforded ●work● like, betwixt persons of 〈◊〉 greatest quality, who by the like sleight practised by 〈◊〉 forsaken Ladies, have not ●eene only a means of reconciliation, but of happy propagation and issue. Great ●hen hath been the virtue and patience of those noble Matrons, to suffer such corrivallship, in conniving at their own maidservants and Gentlewomen; considering that (as Crates saith) nuptial faith is seldom violated without revenge. Besides, there can be no greater temptation to corrupt the constancy and loyalty of a married woman, than when she perceives her husband to discharge upon her his discontents and virulencies, and reserve all his time and consociety for the person of another.  
Aristotle affirms, th●● man or woman is worthy to be accounted stout, bold and valiant, who do no● only with patience, indu●● injuries and rebukes of feared them, but strive to repay the best good for th● worst evil. For patiencei of such similitude, and nee●● alliance unto fortitude, th●● she is either her sister or her daughter. And though this virtue (as Cicero saith) being often provoked with injuries may break out into fury; yet in such distraction, it is good for wronged women, to think upon the worst how to better it, and to wish the best with intent to further it, and whatsoever shall happen patiently to endure it. For the only remedy for injuries, is to study how to forget them. I conclude with the Emperor Aurelius, who tells us, that it is more safety to forget a wrong than to revenge it; to suffer infirmities, and dissemble mishaps: the one is the office of a constant sick man, the other of a cunning Statesman. But for a wife to bear with the weakness and imperfections of 〈◊〉 husband, is the true Character of a wise and virtuous woman.  Gaudet patientia Duris. 
FINIS.