when they had observed his majesticall presence as he sate in purple robes, crowned with his scepter, &c. in his royall seat, the poor men were so amazed, enamored, and taken with the object, that they were pertæsi domestici & pristini tyrotarchi, as weary and ashamed of their own sordidity and manner of life. They would all be English forthwith; who but English! but when they had now submitted themselves, and lost their former liberty, they began to rebell some of them, others repent of what they had done, when it was too late.

’Tis so with us Batchelors, when we see and behold those sweet faces, those gaudy shewes that women make, observe their pleasant gestures and graces, give ear to their Siren tunes, see them dance, &c. we think their conditions are as fine as their faces, we are taken with dumb signes, in amplexum ruimus, we rave, we burn, and would fain be married.

But when we feel the miseries, cares, woes, that accompany it, we make our moan many of us, cry out at length and cannot be released. If this be true now, as some out of experience will enform us, farewell wiving for my part, and as the Comicall Poet merrily saith,

Perdatur ille pessimè qui fœminam Duxit secundus, nam nihil primo imprecor! Ignarus ut puto mali primus fuit.

Foul fall him that brought the second match to passe, The first I wish no harm, poor man alas, He knew not what he did, nor what it was.

What shall I say to him that marries again and again,

Stulta maritali qui porrigit ora capistro,

I pitty him not, for the first time he must do as he may, bear it out sometimes by the head and shoulders, and let his next neighbour ride, or else run away, or as that Syracusian in a tempest, when all ponderous things were to be exonerated out of the ship, quia maximum pondus erat, fling his wife into the Sea. But this I confesse is Comically spoken, and so I pray you take it.

In sober sadness, marriage is a bondage, a thralldom, an yoke, an hinderance to all good enterprises, (he hath married a wife and cannot come) a stop to all preferments, a rock on which many are saved, many impinge and are cast away: not that the thing is evill in it self or troublesome, but full of all contentment and happiness, one of the three things which please God, when a man and his wife agree together, an honorable and happy estate, who knows it not? If they be sober, wise, honest, as the Poet infers,

Si commodos nanciscantur amores, Nullum iis abest voluptatis genus.

If fitly matcht be man and wife, No pleasure’s wanting to their life.

But to undiscreet sensuall persons, that as brutes are wholy led by sense, it is a ferall plague, many times an hell it self, and can give little or no content, being that they are often so irregular and prodigious in their lusts, so diverse in their affections.

Uxor nomen dignitatis, non voluptatis, as he said, a wife is a name of honor, not of pleasure: she is fit to bear the office, govern a family, to bring up children, sit at bords end and carve, as some carnal men think and say; they had rather go to the stews, or have now and then a snatch as they can come by it, borrow of their neighbours, then have wives of their own; except they may, as some Princes and great men do, keep as many Curtisans as they will themselves, fly out impunè,

Permolere uxores alienas.

that polygamy of Turkes, Lex Iulia, with Cæsar once inforced in Rome (though Levinus Torrentius, and others suspect it) uti uxores quot & quas vellent liceret, that every great man might marry, and keep as many wives as he would, or Irish divorcement were in use:

but as it is, ’tis hard and gives not that satisfaction to these carnal men, beastly men as too many are: What still the same, to be tied to one, be she never so fair, never so vertuous, is a thing they may not endure, to love one long. Say thy pleasure, and counterfeit as thou wilt, as Parmeno told Thais, Neq; tu uno eris contenta, one man will never please thee; nor one woman many men:

But as Pan replied to his father Mercury, when he asked whether he was married, Nequaquam pater, amator enim sum, &c. No father, no, I am a lover still, and cannot be contented with one woman. Pythias, Echo, Menades, and I know not how many besides were his Mistresses, he might not abide marriage.

Varietas delectat, ’tis loathsome and tedious, what one still? which the Satyrist said of Iberina, is verified in most,

Unus Iberinæ vir sufficit? ocyus illud Extorquebis ut hæc oculo contenta sit uno,

’Tis not one man will serve her by her will, As soon shee’l have one eye as one man still:

As capable of any impression as materia prima it self, that still desires new forms, like the sea their affections ebb and flow. Husband is a cloak for some to hide their villany; once married she may fly out at her pleasure, the name of Husband is a sanctuary to make all good. Eò ventum (saith Seneca) ut nulla virum habeat, nisi ut irritet adulterum.

They are right and straight, as true Trojans as mine hostes daughter, that Spanish wench in Ariosto, as good wives as Messalina. Many men are as constant in their choice, and as good husbands as Nero himself, they must have their pleasure of all they see, and are in a word far more fickle then any woman.

For either they be full of jealousie, Or masterfull, or loven novelte, &c.

Good men have often ill wives, as bad as Xantippe was to Socrates, Elevora to St. Lues, Isabella to our Edward the second: and good wives are as often matched to ill husbands, as Mariamne to Herod, Serena to Dioclesian, Theodora to Theophilus, and Thyra to Gurmunde.

But I will say nothing of dissolute and bad husbands, of Batchelours and their vices; their good qualities are a fitter subject for a just volume, too well known already in every village, town and city, they need no blazon; and lest I should marre any matches, or dis-hearten loving maids, for this present I will let them passe.

Being that men and women are so irreligious, depraved by nature, so wandring in their affections, so brutish, so subject to disagreement, so unobservant of marriage rites, what shall I say? If thou beest such a one, or thou light on such a wife, what concord can there be, what hope of agreement? ’tis not conjugium but conjurgium, as the Reed and Ferne in the Embleme, averse and opposite in nature: ’tis twenty to one thou wilt not marry to thy contentment: but as in a lottery forty blanks were drawn commonly for one prize, out of a multitude you shall hardly choose a good one: a small ease hence then, little comfort,

Nec integrum unquam transiges lætus diem.

If he or she be such a one, Thou hadst much better be alone.

If she be barren, she is not —— &c. If she have children, and thy state be not good, though thou be wary and circumspect, thy charge will undo thee, —— fœcunda domum tibi prole gravabit, thou wilt not be able to bring them up, and what greater misery can there be, then to beget children, to whom thou canst leave no other inheritance but hunger and thirst?

cum fames dominatur, strident voces rogantium panem, penetrantes patris cor: what so grievous as to turn them up to the wide world, to shift for themselves? No plague like to want: and when thou hast good means, and art very carefull of their education, they will not be ruled.

Think but of that old proverb, ἡρώων τέκνα πήματα, Heroum filii noxæ, great mens sons seldome do well; O utinam aut cœlebs mansissem, aut prole carerem! Augustus exclaims in Suetonius.

Jacob had his Ruben, Simeon and Levi: David an Amnon, an Absolon, Adoniah; wise mens sons are commonly fools, insomuch that Spartian concludes, Neminem prope magnorum virorum optimum & utilem reliquisse filium; They had been much better to have been childless.

’Tis too common in the middle sort; Thy sonne’s a drunkard, a gamester, a spendthrift; thy daughter a fool, a whore, thy servants lazie drones and theeves, thy neighbours divels, they will make thee weary of thy life.

If thy wife be froward, when she may not have her will, thou hadst better be buried alive; she will be so impatient, raving still, and roaring like Juno in the Tragedy, there’s nothing but tempests, all is in an uproar. If she be soft and foolish, thou wert better have a block, she will shame thee and reveal thy secrets: