Of Cato’s mind belike, that would have his servants (cum ancillis congredi coitus causa, definito ære, ut graviora facinora evitarent, cæteris interim interdicens) familiar with some such feminine creatures, to avoid worse mischiefs in his house, and made allowance for it.

They hold it impossible for idle persons, yong, rich, and lusty, so many servants, Monks, Friers, to live honest, too tyrannical a burden to compel them to be chaste, and most unfit to suffer poor men, yonger brothers and souldiers at all to marry, as those diseased persons, votaries, priests, servants. Therefore as well to keep and ease the one as the other, they tolerate and wink at these kind of Brothel houses and Stews. Many probable arguments they have to prove the lawfulness, the necessity, and a toleration of them, as of usury; and without question in policy they are not to be contradicted: but altogether in Religion.

Others prescribe philters, spels, charms to keep men and women honest. Mulier ut alienum virum non admittat præter suum: Accipe fel hirci, & adipem, & exsicca, calescat in oleo, &c. & non alium præter te amabit. In Alexi, Porta, &c. plura invenies, & multo his absurdiora, uti & in Rhasi, ne mulier virum admittat, & maritum solum diligat, &c. But these are most part Pagan, impious, irreligious, absurd, and ridiculous devices.

The best means to avoid these and like inconveniences, are, to take away the causes and occasions. To this purpose Varro writ Satyram Menippeam, but it is lost. Patritius prescribes foure rules to be observed in chusing of a wife (which who so will may read) Fonseca the Spaniard in his 45. c. Amphitheat. Amoris, sets down six special cautions for men, foure for women; Sam. Neander out of Shonbernerus, five for men, five for women; Anthony Guivarra many good lessons; Cleobulus two alone, others otherwise;

as first to make a good choice in marriage, to invite Christ to their wedding, and which Saint Ambrose adviseth, Deum conjugii præsidem habere, and to pray to him for her, (A Domino enim datur uxor prudens, Prov. 19.) not to be too rash and precipitate in his election, to run upon the first he meets, or dote on every stout fair piece he sees, but to chuse her as much by his ears as eys, to be well advised whom he takes, of what age, &c. and cautelous in his proceeding. An old man should not marry a yong woman, or a yong woman an old man,

Quàm malè inæquales veniunt ad aratra juvenci!

such matches must needs minister a perpetual cause of suspicion, and be distastful to each other.

Noctua ut in tumulis, super atque cadavera bubo, Talis apud Sophoclem nostra puella sedet.

Night-crows on tombs, Owl sits on carcass dead, So lies a wench with Sophocles in bed.

For Sophocles, as Atheneus describes him, was a very old man, as cold as January, a bedfellow of bones, and doted yet upon Archippe a yong Curtesan, then which nothing can be more odious. Senex maritus uxori juveni ingratus est, an old man is a most unwelcome guest to a yong wench, unable, unfit:

Amplexus suos fugiunt puellæ, Omnis horret amor, Venusque Hymenque.

And as in like case a good fellow that had but a peck of corn weekly to grind, yet would needs build a new mill for it, found his error eftsoons, for either he must let his mill lye waste, pull it quite down, or let others grind at it. So these men, &c.

Seneca therefore disallows all such unseasonable matches, habent enim maledicti locum crebræ nuptiæ. And as Tully farther inveighs, ’tis unfit for any, but ugly and filthy in old age. Turpe senilis amor, one of the three things God hateth. Plutarch in his book contra Coleten, rails downright at such kind of marriages, which are attempted by old men, qui jam corpore impotenti, & à voluptatibus deserti, peccant animo, and makes a question whether in some cases it be tolerable at least for such a man to marry,

——qui Venerem affectat sine viribus,

that is now past those venerous exercises, as a gelded man lies with a virgin and sighs, Ecclus 30.20. and now complains with him in Petronius, funerata est hæc pars jam, quæ fuit olim Achillea, he is quite done,

Vixit puellæ nuper idoneus, Et militavit non sine gloriâ.

But the question is whether he may delight himself as those Priapeian Popes, which in their decrepit age lay commonly between two wenches every night, contactu formosarum, & contrectatione, num adhuc gaudeat; and as many doting Syres still do to their own shame, their childrens undoing, and their families confusion: he abhors it, tanquam ab agresti & furioso domino fugiendum, It must be avoided as a Bedlam master, and not obeyed.

Alecto—— Ipsa faces præfert nubentibus, & malus Hymen Triste ululat,——

the divel himself makes such matches. Levinus Lemnius reckons up three things which generally disturb the peace of marriage: the first is when they marry intempestive or unseasonably, as many mortal men marry precipitately and inconsiderately, when they are effæte and old: The second when they marry unequally for fortunes and birth: the third, when a sick impotent person weds one that is sound, novæ nuptæ spes frustratur: Many dislikes instantly follow.

Many doting dizards, it may not be denyed, as Plutarch confesseth, recreate themselves with such obsolete, unseasonable and filthy remedies (so he calls them) with a remembrance of their former pleasures, against nature they stir up their dead flesh: but an old lecher is abominable; mulier tertio nubens, Nevisanus holds, præsumitur lubrica & inconstans, a woman that marries the third time may be presumed to be no honester then she should.

Of them both, thus Ambrose concludes in his comment upon Luke, they that are coupled together, not to get children, but to satisfie their lust, are not husbands, but fornicators, with whom St. Austin consents: matrimony without hope of children, non matrimonium, sed concubium dici debet, is not a wedding but a jumbling or coupling together.

In a word (except they wed for mutual society, help and comfort one of another, in which respects though Tiberius deny it, without question old folks may well marry) for sometimes a man hath most need of a wife, according to Puccius, when he hath no need of a wife: otherwise it is most odious, when an old Acheronticke dizard, that hath one foot in his grave, à silicernium, shall flicker after a lusty yong wench that is blithe and bonny,

——salaciorque Verno passere, & albulis columbis.

What can be more detestable?

Tu cano capite amas senex nequissime Jam plenus ætatis, animâque fœtidâ, Senex hircosus tu osculare mulierem? Utine adiens vomitum potius excuties.

Thou old goat, hoary lecher, naughty man, With stinking breath, art thou in love? Must thou be slavering? she spews to see Thy filthy face, it doth so move.

Yet as some will, it is much more tolerable for an old man to marry a yong woman (our Ladies match they call it) for cras erit mulier, as he said in Tully. Cato the Roman, Critobulus in Xenophon, Tyraquellus of late, Julius Scaliger, &c. and many famous presidents we have in that kind; but not è contra: ’tis not held fit for an ancient woman to match with a yong man. For as Varro will, Anus dum ludit morti delitias facit, ’tis Charons match between Cascus and Casca, and the devil himself is surely well pleased with it. And therefore as the Poet inveighs, thou old Vetustina bed-ridden quean, that art now skin and bones,

Cui tres capilli, quatuorque sunt dentes, Pectus cicadæ, crusculumque formicæ, Rugosiorem quæ geris stolâ frontem, Et arænarum cassibus pares mammas.

That hast three hairs, foure teeth, a brest Like grashopper, an emmets crest, A skin more rugged then thy coat, And duggs like spiders web to boot.