That wrongs the praife of women; that dares write
Libells on faints, or with foul ink requite
'The milk they lent us: Better fex, command
To your defence, my more religious hand
At word, or pen; yours was the nobler birth;
For you of man were made, man but of earth,
The fon of duft: and tho' your fin did breed
His fall, again you rais'd him in your feed:
Adam in's fleep again full lofs futtain'd,
That for one rib, a better felf regain'd;
Who had he not your bleft creation feen,
An Anchorite in Paradife had been.
Why in this work did the creation reft,
But that eternal providence thought you beft
Of all his fix days labour? Beafts should do
Homage to man, but man fhall wait on you:
You are of a comelier fight, of daintier touch,
A tender flesh, and colour bright, and fuch
As Parians fee in marble; skin more fair,
More glorious head, and far more glorious hair;
Eyes full of grace and quicknefs; purer rofes
Blush in your cheeks; a milder white compofes
Your ftately fronts; your breath more fweet than his
Breaths fpice, and nectar drops at ev'ry kifs.
Your skins are fmooth, briftles on theirs do grow
Like quills of porcupines; rough wooll doth flow
O'er all their faces; you approach more near
The form of angels, they like beasts appear:
If then in Bodies where the fouls do dwell
You better us; do then our fouls excel?
No, we in fouls equal perfection fee,
There can in them, nor male nor female be.
Boast we of knowledge? you are more than we,
You were the first ventur'd to pluck the tree:
And that more rhetʼrick in your tongues do lie,
Let him difpute againft, that dares deny
Your leaft commands; and not perfuaded be
With Sampson's Brength, and David's piety,
To be your willing captives: vertue fure
Were blind as fortune, fhould fhe choose the poor
Rough cottage, man, to live in, and defpife
To dwell in you, the ftately edifice:
Thus you are prov'd the better fex; and we
Muft all repent, that in our pedigree,
We chofe the father's name; where fhould we take
The mother's, a more honour'd blood, twould make Our generation fure and certain be,
And i'd believe fome faith in heraldry.
Thus perfect creatures, if detraction rife
Againit your fex, difpute but with your eyes,
Your hand, your lip, your brow, there will be fent So fubtle and fo ftrong an argument,
Will teach the ftoick his affection too,
And call the cynick from his tub to wooe.
Thus muft'ring up your beauteous troops go on,
The faireft, is the valiant Amazon.
Let them imagine, who did ever know
What milled womens wild defires will do,
When they extremely do, or luft, or loath;
Cruel alike, alike unjust in both,
And from their worst defires most hardly chang'd.
May's Edward III. The wanton nymph doth more delight me far; The modeft nymphs do more feem chaft than are: Women are all alike; the diff'rence this, This feems and is not, that both feems and is; Or if fome are not, as they call it, ill;
They want the pow'r and incans, but not the will.
Women in the beginning (as 'tis faid)
To be an help to man was chiefly made:
Then ought not women much to be commended,
Who anfwer th' end for which they were intended?
Women were made to help men, fo they do;
Some unto forrow, grief, diseases too:
Others, do their kind husbands help to spend
Their whole eftates; thus answer they their end:
Some help men unto more than they were born
To have, I mean Acteon's head and horn.
Crooked-condition'd nature made her, when
She form'd her of the crooked'ft parts in men:
Nature first fram'd her of a man's rib, the
Then can't chufe but a cross-grain'd creature be:
And ever fince (it may not be deny'd)
Poor man hath fubject been t'a ftich i' th' fide.
For fhame you pretty female elves,
Ceale thus to candy up your felves;
No more you fectarys of the game,
No more of your calcining flame,
Women commence by cupid's dart,
As a king hunting dubs a hart.
She fhew'd that her foft fex contains strong minds,
Such as evap'rates through the coarfer male;
As through coarfe ftone, elixir paffage finds,
Which scarce through finer chryftal can exhale.
Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert.
Is not fo ftrong in anger, as her skill.
Sir W. Davenant's Albovine. Oh what a feeble fort's a woman's heart, Betray'd by nature, and befieg'd by art!
Fane's Love in the Dark, Dangers and bufinefs are cut out for men; Women are fpar'd, to stock the world again.
No woman takes her felf to be a monster;
Yet fhe would be fo, if her eyes were stars,
Her lips of rofes, and her face of lilies:
Why, traps were made for foxes, gins for hares,
Lime-twigs for birds, and lies and oaths for women.
Oh women, mens fubduers!
Natures extreams! no mean is to be had;
Excellent good, or infinitely bad.
Davenport's King John and Matilda.
As far are from their hearts (though from their breafts They flie) as lapwings crys are from their nefts.
Davenport's City Night Cap. He is a fool who thinks by force, or skill, To turn the current of a woman's will.
Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours. Seek for the ftar that's fhot upon the ground, And nought but a dim gelly there is found: Thus foul and dark our female ftars appear, If fall'n or loofned once from vertue's sphere.
Bishop King, Women, like china, fhould be kept with care; One flaw debafes her to common ware.
Crown's Sir Courtly Nice.
Poor womankind-
Heav'n for our ruin, gifts on us beftows,
Charms to allure, no power to oppose.
In paffion we are strong, in reafon weak,
Conftant alone, to error and mistake;
In vertue feign'd, in vanity fincere;
Witty in fin, and for damnation fair.
Thefe are great maxims, fir, it is confeft;
Too ftately for a womans narrow breast.
Poor love is loft in mens capacious minds;
In ours, it fills up all the room it finds.
Crown's Second Part of the Defiruction of Jerufalem.
From men we only seem to fly,
To meet them with more privacy.
Ev'n as the vapour which the fire repells,
Turns not to earth, but in the mid air dwells;
Where while it hangs, if Boreas' frofty flaws,
With rigour rattle it, not to rain it thaws,
But thunder, light'nings, ratt'ling hail or fnow
Sends down to earth, whence first it rose below;
But if fair Phabus with his count'nance sweet
Refolve it, down the dew, or manna fleet:
The manna dew, that in the eastern lands,
Excel the labour of the bees fmall hands.
Elfe for her Memnon grey Aurora's tears
On the earth it ftill; the partner of her fears.
Or fends sweet show'rs to glad their mother earth,
Whence first they took their firft inconstant birth:
To fo great griefs, ill taken words do grow:
Of words well taken, fuch delights do flow.
He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them
To grow there and to bear.
Shakespear's All's well that ends well.
Your words are ear-wigs to my vexed brains,
Like hen-bane juice, or aconite diffus'd,
They ftrike me fenfelefs.
Words are the foul's embaffadors, who go
Abroad upon her errands to and fro;
They are the fole expounders of the mind,
And correfpondence keep 'twixt all mankind.
They are thofe airy keys that ope (and wrest
Sometimes) the locks and hinges of the breast.
By them the heart makes fallies: wit and fenfe
Belong to them: They are the quinte flence
Of thofe ideas which the thoughts diftil,
And fo calcine and melt again, until
They drop forth into accents; in whom lies
The falt of fancy, and all faculties.
The world was fram'd by the eternal word,
Who to each creature did a name afford ;
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