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with the Jesuits;
A most compendious way, and civil,
At once to cheat the world, the devil,
And heaven and hell, yourselves, and those
On whom you vainly think tā€™ impose.
Why then (quoth he) may hell surpriseā ā€”
That trick (said she) will not pass twice:
Iā€™ve learnā€™d how far Iā€™m to believe
Your pinning oaths upon your sleeve.
But thereā€™s a better way of clearing
What you would prove than downright swearing:
For if you have performā€™d the feat,
The blows are visible as yet,
Enough to serve for satisfaction
Of nicest scruples in the action:
And if you can produce those knobs,
Although theyā€™re but the witchā€™s drubs,
Iā€™ll pass them all upon account,
As if your natural self had done ā€™t;
Provided that they pass thā€™ opinion
Of able juries of old women,
Who, usā€™d to judge all matter of facts
For bellies, may do so for backs.

Madam, (quoth he) your loveā€™s a million;
To do is less than to be willing,
As I am, were it in my power,
Tā€™ obey, what you command, and more:
But for performing what you bid,
I thank you ā€™s much as if I did.
You know I ought to have a care
To keep my wounds from taking air:
For wounds in those that are all heart,
Are dangerous in any part.

I find (quoth she) my goods and chattels
Are like to prove but mere drawn battels;
For still the longer we contend,
We are but farther off the end.
But granting now we should agree,
What is it you expect from me?
Your plighted faith (quoth he) and word
You past in heaven on record,
Where all contracts, to have and tā€™ hold,
Are everlastingly enrollā€™d:
And if ā€™tis counted treason here
To raze records, ā€™tis much more there.

Quoth she, There are no bargains drivā€™n,
Or marriages clappā€™d up in heavā€™n,
And thatā€™s the reason, as some guess,
There is no heavā€™n in marriages;
Two things that naturally press
Too narrowly to be at ease.
Their busā€™ness there is only love,
Which marriage is not like tā€™ improve:
Love, thatā€™s too generous to abide
To be against its nature tyā€™d;
Or where ā€™tis of itself inclinā€™d,
It breaks loose when it is confinā€™d;
And like the soul, its harbourer,
Debarrā€™d the freedom of the air,
Disdains against its will to stay,
But struggles out, and flies away;
And therefore never can comply
Tā€™ endure the matrimonial tie,
That binds the female and the male,
Where thā€™ one is but the otherā€™s bail;
Like Roman gaolers, when they slept,
Chainā€™d to the prisoners they kept;
Of which the true and faithfullā€™st lover
Gives best security to suffer.
Marriage is but a beast, some say,
That carries double in foul way;
And therefore ā€™tis not to bā€™ admirā€™d,
It should so suddenly be tirā€™d;
A bargain at a venture made,
Between two partners in a trade;
(For whatā€™s inferrā€™d by tā€™ have and tā€™ hold,
But something past away, and sold?)
That as it makes but one of two,
Reduces all things else as low,
And, at the best, is but a mart
Between the one and thā€™ other part,
That on the marriage-day is paid,
Or hour of death, the bet is laid;
And all the rest of better or worse,
Both are but losers out of purse;
For when upon their ungot heirs
Thā€™ entail themselves, and all thatā€™s theirs,
What blinder bargain eā€™er was drivā€™n,
Or wager laid at six and seven?
To pass themselves away, and turn
Their childrenā€™s tenants eā€™re theyā€™re born?
Beg one another idiot
To guardians, ere they are begot;
Or ever shall, perhaps, by thā€™ one
Whoā€™s bound to vouch ā€™em for his own,
Though got bā€™ implicit generation,
And genā€™ral club of all the nation;
For which sheā€™s fortifyā€™d no less
Than all the island, with four seas;
Exacts the tribute of her dower,
In ready insolence and power;
And makes him pass away, to have
And hold, to her, himself, her slave,
More wretched than an ancient villain,145
Condemnā€™d to drudgery and tilling;
While all he does upon the by,
She is not bound to justify,
Nor at her proper cost and charge
Maintain the feats he does at large.
Such hideous sots were those obedient
Old vassals to their ladies regent,
To give the cheats the eldest hand
In foul play by the laws oā€™ thā€™ land;
For which so many a legal cuckold
Has been run down in courts and truckled;
A law that most unjustly yokes
All Johns of Stiles to Joans of Noakes,
Without distinction of degree,
Condition, age, or quality:
Admits no power of revocation,
Nor valuable consideration,
Nor writ of error, nor reverse
Of judgment past, for better or worse:
Will not allow the privileges
That beggars challenge under hedges,
Who, when theyā€™re grievā€™d, can make dead horses
Their spiritual judges of divorces;
While nothing else but Rem in Re
Can set the proudest wretches free;
A slavery beyond enduring,
But that ā€™tis of their own procuring.
As spiders never seek the fly,
But leave him, of himself, tā€™ apply
So men are by themselves employā€™d,
To quit the freedom they enjoyā€™d,
And run their necks into a noose,
Theyā€™d break ā€™em after to break loose;
As some, whom death would not depart,
Have done the feat themselves by art;
Like Indian widows, gone to bed
In flaming curtains to the dead;146
And men as often dangled forā€™t,
And yet will never leave the sport.
Nor do the ladies want excuse
For all the stratagems they use
To gain thā€™ advantage of the set,
And lurch the amorous rook and cheat:
For as the Pythagorean soul
Runs through all beasts, and fish, and fowl,147
And has a smack of evā€™ry one,
So love does, and has ever done;
And therefore, though ā€™tis neā€™er so fond,
Takes strangely to the vagabond.
ā€™Tis but an ague thatā€™s reverst,
Whose hot fit takes the patient first,
That after burns with cold as much
As irā€™n in Greenland does the touch;
Melts in the furnace of desire
Like glass, thatā€™s but the ice of fire;
And when his heat of fancyā€™s over,
Becomes as hard and frail a lover:
For when heā€™s with love-powder laden,
And primā€™d and cockā€™d by Miss or Madam,
The smallest sparkle of an eye
Gives fire to his artillery,
And off the loud oaths go; but, while
Theyā€™re in the very act, recoil.
Hence ā€™tis so few dare take their chance
Without a sepā€™rate maintenance;
And widows, who have tryā€™d one lover,
Trust none again, ā€™till thā€™ have made over;
Or if they do, before they marry,
The foxes weigh the geese they carry;
And ere they venture oā€™er a stream,
Know how to size themselves and them;
Whence wittiest ladies always choose
To undertake the heaviest goose:
For now the world is grown so wary,
That few of either sex dare marry,
But rather trust on tick tā€™ amours,
The

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