But let that fashion more to modesty Where goodnesse failes, 'twixt ill and ill that stands : Lust would more common be then any one, All these good parts a perfect woman make : And of that love, let reason father be, As good and wise; so be she fit for me, That is, to will, and not to will, the same: My wife is my adopted selfe, and she As me, so what I love, to love must frame: For when by mariage both in one concurre, Woman converts to man, not man to her. FINIS. THE AUTHOURS EPITAPH. T" WRITTEN BY HIMSELFE. IIE span of my daies measur'd, here I rest, Only this dust doth here in pawne remaine, CHARACTERS. OR, WITTY DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PROPERTIES OF SUNDRY PERSONS. A Good Woman. GOOD woman . is a comfort, like a man. She lacks of him nothing but heat. Thence is her sweetnesse of disposition, which meets his stoutnesse more pleasingly; so wooll meets iron easier than iron; and turnes resisting into embracing. Her greatest learning is religion, and her thoughts are on her owne sex, or on men, without casting the difference. Dishonesty never comes neerer than her eares, and then wonder stops it out, and saves vertue the labour. She leaves the neat youth, telling his lushious tales, and puts back the serving-mans putting forward, with a frown: yet her kindness is free enough to be seen, for it hath no guilt about it: and her mirth is cleare, that you may looke through it, into vertue, but not beyond. She hath not behaviour at a certaine, but makes it to her occasion. Shee hath so much knowledge as to love it; and if she have it not at home, she will fetch it, for this sometimes in a pleasant discontent she dares chide her sex, though she use it never the worse. She is much within, and frames outward things to her mind, not her mind to them. Shee weares good clothes, but never better; for shee finds no degree beyond decencie. Shee hath a content of her owne, and so seekes not an husband, but finds him. She is indeed most, but not much of description, for she is direct and one, and hath not the variety of ill. Now she is given fresh and alive to a husband, and she doth nothing more than love him, for she takes him to that purpose. So his good becomes the businesse of her actions, and she doth her selfe kindnesse upon him. After his, her chiefest vertue For shee is hee. is a good husband. A Very Woman. VERY woman, is a dow-bakt man, or a she meant well towards man, but fell two bowes short, strength and underHer vertue is the hedge, modesty, that keepes a man from climbing over into her faults. standing. |