ever men, without doubt, forward and confident, losing no time lest they should lose opportunity, which is the best factor for a lover. And because they know women are given to dissemble, they will never believe them when they deny. Certainly before this age of wit, and wearing black, brake in upon us, there was no way known to win a lady, but by tilting, tourneying, and riding to seek adventures through dangerous forests; in which time these slender striplings with little legs were held but of strength enough to marry their widows. And even in our days, there can be given no reason of the inundation of serving-men upon their mistresses, but only that usually they carry their masters' weapons, and their valour. To be accounted handsome, just, learned, and well-favoured, all this carries no danger with it. But it is better to be admitted to the title of valiant acts at least that imports the venturing of mortality; and all women delight to hold him safe in their arms, who hath escaped thither through many dangers. To speak at once, man hath a privilege in valour. In clothes and good faces we do but imitate women; and many of that sex will not think much, as far as an answer goes, to dissemble wit too. So then these neat youths, these women in men's apparel, are too near a woman to be beloved of her; they be both of a trade: but he of grim aspect, and such a one a lass dares take, and will desire him for newness and variety. A scar in a man's face is the same that a mole is in a woman's; and a mole in a woman's is a jewel set in white, to make it seem more white. So a scar in a man is a mark of honour, and no blemish; for it is a scar and a blemish in a soldier to be without one. Now as for all things else which are to procure love, as a good face, wit, clothes, or a good body, each of them, I must needs say, works somewhat for want of a better; that is, if valour corrive not therewith. A good face availeth nothing, if it be on a coward that is bashful; the utmost of it is to be kissed, which rather increaseth, than quencheth appetite. He that sendeth her gifts, sends her word also, that he is a man of small gifts otherwise : for wooing by signs and tokens implies the author dumb. And if Ovid, who writ the Law of Love, were alive, as he is extant, and would allow it as a good diversity; then gifts should be sent as gratuities, not as bribes; and wit would rather get promise than love. Wit is not to be seen, and no woman takes advice of any in her loving, but of her own eyes, or her waiting-woman's: nay, which is worse, wit is not to be felt, and so no good bedfellow. Wit applied to a woman makes her dissolve her simperings, and discover her teeth with laughter; and this is surely a purge for love; for the beginning and original of love is a kind of foolish melancholy. As for the man that makes his tailor his bawd, and hopes to inveigle his love with such a coloured suit, surely the same man deeply hazards the loss of her favour upon every change of his clothes. So likewise the other that courts her silently with a good body, let me tell him that his clothes stand always betwixt his mistress's eyes and him. The comeliness of clothes depends upon the comeliness of the body, and so both upon opinion. She that hath been seduced by apparel, let me give her to weet, that men always put off their clothes before they go to bed; and let her that hath been enamoured of her servant's body understand, that if she saw him in a skin of cloth, that is, in a suit made to the pattern of his body, she would discern slender cause to love him ever after. There are no clothes fit so well in a woman's eye as a suit of steel, though not of the fashion and no man so soon surpriseth a woman's affections, as he that is the subject of whisperings, and hath always some twenty stories of his own achievements depending upon him. Mistake me not, I understand not by valour one that never fights but when he is backed by drink or anger, or hissed on by beholders; nor one that is desperate; nor one that takes away a serving-man's weapons, when perhaps they cost him his quarter's wages; nor one that wears a privy coat of defence, and therein is confident; for then such as make bucklers would be accounted the very scum of the commonwealth: I intend one of an even resolution, grounded upon reason, which is always even; having his power restrained by the law of not doing wrong. In addition to the extract from Miss Lucy Aikin's Court of Queen Elizabeth, which we have already given in the Life of our Author prefixed to this volume, we may here add two other commendations of this celebrated state document. 66 "It contains," observes Strype, in his Annals of the Reformation, many brief, but bright sentences; showing the mature judgment of the writer, his wisdom in counsel, his skill in politics, his acquaintance with the Roman history, his knowledge of foreign states and kingdoms, and observations thence, his apprehension of the great danger from Papists, his concern for the Protestant interest abroad, (of which she was the only protectress, as well as of the religion at home,) the little or no advantage she was like to receive from France, her personal danger in case of a conclusion of this marriage with Monsieur, and how dear she was to her own people. So that, in short, this letter, abounding with such close application of arguments, seems to have swayed the Queen to decline this motion." 66 Among other enemies to the match," says Mr. Hume," Sir Philip Sidney, son to Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, and nephew to Leicester, a young man the most accomplished of that age, used the freedom to write her a letter, in which he dissuaded her from her present resolution, with an unusual elegance of expression, as well as force of reasoning." - This courageous epistle was first printed in the "Scrinia Ceciliana," or "Supplement to the Cabala," p. 201. Lond. 1663. It was afterwards inserted among the " Sidney Papers," vol. i. P. 287. |