A1r A1v A2r

The
Worming

of a mad Dogge:

or,
a Soppe for
Cerberus the

Jaylor of Hell.

No Confutation but a
sharpe Redargution of the
bayter of Women.

By Constantia Munda
―― dux fæmina facti.

Virg: ÆnAeneid: I. “Si genus humanum & mortalia temnitis arma, At sperate Deos memores fandi atque nefandi.”

London
Printed for Laurence Hayes, and are to be
sold at his shop neere Fleet-bridge, over
against St. Brides Lane. 16171617.

A2v A3r

To the right
worshipful lady

her most deare Mother, the Lady
Prudentia Munda, the true
patterne of Pietie and Vertue, C.M.Constantia Munda
wisheth increase of happinesse.

As first your paines in bearing me was such

A benefit beyond requitall, that t’were much

To thinke what pangs of sorrow you sustain’d

In child-birth, when mine infancy obtain’d

The vitall drawing in of ayre, so your love

Mingled with care hath shewen it selfe, above

The ordinary course of Nature: seeing you still

Are in perpetuall Labour with me, even untill

The second birth of education perfect me,

You Travaill still though Churched oft you be.

In recompence whereof what can I give,

But what I take, even that I live,

Next to the heavens ’tis yours. Thus I pay

My A3v

My debt by taking up at interest, and lay

To pawne that which I borrow of you: so

The more I give I take, I pay, I owe.

Yet lest you thinke I forfait shall my bond

I here present you with my writing hand.

Some trifling minutes I vainely did bestow

In penning of these lines that all might know

The scandals of our adversarie, and

I had gone forward had not Hester hang’d

Haman before: yet what here I wrote

Might serve to stop the curs wide throat,

Untill the haltar came, since which I ceast

To prosecute what I intended, lest

I should be censur’d that I undertooke

A worke that’s done already: so his booke

Hath scapt my fingers, but in like case

As a malefactor changeth place

From Newgate unto Tiburne, whose good hope

Is but to change his shackels for a rope.

Although this be a toy scarce worth your view,

Yet deigne to reade it, and accept in lieu

Of greater dutie, for your gracious looke

Is a sufficient Patrone to my booke.

This is the worst disgrace that can be had.

A Ladies daughter worm’d a dog that’s mad.

Your loving Daughter

Constantia Munda.

A4r

To Joseph Swetnam.

What? is thy shameles muse so fleg’d in sin

So cocker’d up in mischiefe? or hast bin

Train’d up by Furies in the schoole of vice,

Where the licentious Devils hoyst the price

Of uncought mischiefe, & make a set reward,

For hell-hound slanderers that nought regard

Their reputation, or the wholesome Lawes

Of Vertues Common-wealth, but seek applause

By rayling and reviling to deprave

The mirrour of Creation, to out-brave

Even heaven it selfe with folly: could the straine

Of that your barren-idle-donghill braine,

As from a Chymick Limbeck so distill

Your poyson’d drops of hemlocke, and so fill

The itching eares of silly swaines, and rude

Truth-not-discerning rusticke multitude

With sottish lies, with bald and ribald lines,

Patcht out of English writers that combines

Their highest reach of emulation but to please

The A4v

The giddy-headed vulgar: whose disease

Like to a swelling dropsie, thirsts to drinke

And swill the puddles of this nasty sinke:

Whence through the channels of your muddy
wit,

Your hotch-potcht work is drawn and the slimy
pit

Of your invective pamphlet fild to th’brim

With all defiled streames, yet many swimme

And bath themselves (oh madnes) in that floud

Of mischiefe, with delight, and deem that good

Which spoyls their reasōon, being not understood.

When people view not wel your divellish book,

Like nibling fish they swallow bait and hooke

To their destruction, when they not descry

Your base and most unreverent blasphemy.

How in the ruffe of fury you disgrace

(As much as in you lies) and doe deface

Natures best ornament; and thinkst th’ast done

An act deserving commendation;

Whereas thy merits being brought in sight,

Exclaime thus on thee, Gallows claime thy right.

Woman the crowne, perfection, & the meanes

Of all mens being, and their well-being, whence

Is the propagation of all humane kinde,

Wherein the bodies frame, th’intellect and mind

With all their operations doe first finde

Their Essence and beginning, where doth lie

The B1r

The mortall meanes of our eternity,

Whose vertues, worthinesse, resplendent rayes

Of perfect beauty have alwaies had the praise

And admiration of such glorious wits,

Which Fame the worlds great Herauld sits,

Crowning with Lawrel wreaths & Mirtle bows,

The tribute and reward of learned browes,

And that this goodly peece of nature be

Thus shamefully detested, and thus wrong’d by
thee.

How could your vild untutour’d muse infold

And wrap it selfe in envious, cruell, bold,

Nay impudent detraction, and then throw

And hurle without regard your venom’d darts

Of scandalous reviling, at the hearts

Of all our female sexe promiscuously,

Of commons, gentry, and nobility?

Without exceptions hath your spungie pate

(Voyd in it selfe of all things but of hate)

Suckt up the dregs of folly, and the lees

Of mercenary Pasquils, which doe squeese

The glaunders of abuses in the face

Of them that are the cause that humane race

Keepes his continuance: could you be so mad

As to deprave, nay to call that bad

Which God calls good? can your filthy clawes

Scratch out the image that th’ Almighty drawes

B In B1v

In us his pictures? no! things simply good,

Keep stil their essence, though they be withstood

By all the complices of hell: you cannot daunt

Not yet diminish, (how ere you basely vaunt,

With bitter termes) the glory of our Sex,

Nor, as you michingly surmize, you vexe

Us with your dogged rayling, why! we know;

Vertue oppos’d is stronger, and the foe

That’s queld and foyld, addeth but more

Triumph to th’ conquest then there was before.

Wherefore be advised, cease to raile

On them that with advantage can you quaile.

The
B2r 1

The
Worming of

a madde Dogge.

The itching desire of oppressing
the presse with many
sottish and illiterate Libels,
stuft with all manner of ribaldry,
and sordid inventions,
when every foule-mouthed
male-content may disgorge
Tincta licambæo
sanguine
tela dabit, Ovid
in Ibin.
his Licambæan poyson in the face of all
the world, hath broken out into such a dismall
contagion in these our dayes, that every scandalous
tongue and opprobrious witte, like the Italian
Mountebanks will advance their pedling
wares of detracting virulence in the publique
Piatza of every Stationers shoppe. And Printing
that was invented to be the store-house of
famous wits, the treasure of Divine literature, the
pandect and maintainer of all Sciences, is become
the receptacle of every dissolute Pamphlet. The
nursery and hospitall of every spurious and penurious
brat, which proceeds from base phreneticallB2 ticall B2v 2
braine-sicke bablers. When scribimus indocti”
must be the motto of every one that fooles
himselfe in Print: tis ridiculous! but when scribimus
insani”
should bee the signiture of every
page, tis lamentable our times so stupidly possest
and benumd with folly, that wee shall verifie
the Proverbe, “L’usanza commune non è peccato,”
sinnes custome-house hath “non sine privilegio”, writ
upon his dores, as though community in offence
could make an immunitie: No! use of sinne is
the soules extortion, a biting fænorie that eates
out the principle. Yet wofull experience makes
it too true, “consuetudo peccandi tollit sensum peccati,”
as may bee seene by the workes of divers
men that make their pens their pensils to limme
out vice that it may seeme delicious and amiable;
so to detract from vertue and honesty, as though
their essence were onely in outward appearance
of goodnesse, as if mortality were onely circumscribed
within the conditions of our sex, “cælum
ipsum petimus stultitia”
, foolish man will reprehend
his Creator in the admirable worke of his generation
and conservation: Woman the second edition
of the Epitome of the whole world, the second
Tome of that goodly volume compiled by
the great God of heaven and earth is most shamefully
blurd, and derogatively rased by scribling
penns of savage & uncought monsters. To what
an irregular straine is the daring impudence of
blind-fold bayards aspired unto? that they will
presume to call in question even the most absolute
worke composed by the worlds great Architect?tect? B3r 3
A strange blasphemy to finde fault with
that which the Privy Councell of the high and
Gen.I.Gen.1 mighty Parliament of the inscrutable “Tri-unitie”
in Heaven determined to be very good. To call
that imperfect, froward, crooked and perverse
to make an arraignment and Beare-baiting of that
which the Pantocrator would in his omniscient
wisedome have to be the consummation of his
blessed weekes worke, the end, crowne, and perfection
of the never-sufficiently glorified creation.
What is it but an exorbitant phrensie, and
wofull taxation of the supreme deitie. Yet woman
μικρόκοσμος. the greatest part of the “lesser world” is generally
become the subject of every pedanticall
goose-quill. Every fantasticke Poetaster which
thinkes he hath lickt the vomit of his Coriphæus
and can but patch a hobling verse together, will
strive to represent unseemely figments imputed
to our sex, (as a pleasing theme to the vulgar) on
the publique Theatre: teaching the worser sort
that are more prone to luxurie, a compendious
way to learne to be sinfull. These foule mouth’d
raylers, “qui non vident ut corrigant, sed quærunt
quid reprehendant”
, that reproove not that they
might reforme, but pry into actions that they
might carpe and cavill: so that in this infamous
profession they farre exceed the vildest kinde of
Pharisaicall ostentation, and so surmounting beyond
Aut ut Anaxarchus
pila minuaris
in alta.
Ovid in Ibin.
Benvenuto. Ital.
all comparison railing Anaxarchus, who for
his detracting and biting tongue was pestled to
death in a brazen morter. Who as a learned Tuscan
speaketh, “gli miseri vanno a tentone altrevolte B3 a car- B3v 4
a carpone per facer mercatantia dell’altrui da lor inventata
è seminata vergogna, impudicamente cercano
l’altrui deshonor erger la meretricia fronte & malzar
la impudiche corna”
: these wretched miscreants
goe groaping, and sometimes on all foure, to traffique
with other folkes credits by their owne divulged
and dispersed ignominie. That impudently
seeke by others dishonour to set a shamelesse
face on the matter, and thus to put out their
immodest hornes to butt at, and gore the name
and reputation of the innocent, being so besotted
with a base and miserable condition, and blinde
in themselves, they blush not in their tongues to
carry the gall of Rabilius, and in their chaps the
poyson of Colimachus in their mouthes, the flame
of mount Ætna in their eyes, Jupiters lightning
which he darted at the Centaures, in their thoghts
Bellonaes arrowes, in their serpentine words the
bitternesse of Sulmo against Orbecca, blending and
Plus aloes quam
mellis habent.
commixing all their discourse with epaticke aloes
and unsavourie simples, deriving all their ingredients
of their venomed Recipes from the Apothecaries
shop of the Devill. Notwithstanding, as
the same learned man metaphorically speakes,
“Cotesti usei scangerati, cittá senza muro, navi senza
governo, vasi senza coperto cavalli indomiti senza
freno non considerano.”
These wide open-dores,
these unwalled townes, these rudderlesse shippes,
these uncoverd vessels, these unbrideled horses
doe not consider that the tongue being a very little
member should never goe out of that same
ivory gate, in which, (not without a great mystery)sterie) B4r 5
divine wisedome and nature together hath
enclosed, it signifying that a man should give him
selfe eyther to vertuous speech, or prudent silence,
and not let tongue and pen runne up and
downe like a weaponed madde-man, to strike and
wound any without partiality, every one without
exception, to make such an universall massacre
( Un coup de langue
est plus dan
gereux qu’un
coup de lance.
GalGallic: provproverb:
for so I may terme it, seeing words make worse
wounds then swords) yet lest villanie domineere
and triumph in furie, wee will manicle your dissolute
fist, that you deale not your blowes so unadvisedly.
Though feminine modesty hath confin’d
our rarest and ripest wits to silence, wee acknowledge
SophoclSophocles: AjAjax:
γυναιξὶ κοσμὸνἣ
σίγη φέρει
it our greatest ornament, but when
necessity compels us, tis as great a fault and folly
“loquenda tacere, ut contra gravis est culpa tacenda
loqui”
, being too much provoked by arrainments,
baytings, and rancarous impeachments of the reputation
of our whole sex, stulta est clementia――
perituræ parcere cartæ,”
opportunity of speaking
slipt by silence, is as bad as importunity upheld
Loqui quæ decet
est melius quam
tacere.
by babling “λαλει̂ν ἁ πρέπει, κρει̂ττον ἤ σιωπα̂ν”. Know
therefore that wee will cancell your accusations,
travers your bils, and come upon you for a false
inditement, and thinke not tis our waspishnesse
that shall sting you; no sir, untill we see your malepert
sausinesse reformed, which will not be till
Literam longam
trahere.
you doe “make a long letter to us”, we will continue
Juno’es,

“Non sic abibunt odia vivaces aget violentus iras animus
Sanusque dolor æterna bella pace sublatâ geret.”

Notwithstanding for all your injuries as Gelo Siracu- B4v 6
Siracusanus
answered Syagrius the Spartane, “You
ὀὐ με πείσειςἀσχήμοναἐν τη̂ἀμοιβηγί-νεθαι shall not induce mee though stird with anger, to demean
my selfe unreverently in the retribution of your
injuries”
. Your idoll muse, and “musing being idle”
(as your learned Epistle beginneth) shall bee no
plea to make your viperous scandals seeme pleasing,
“ipsa excusatio culpa est”. Where by the way I
note your untoward nature contrary to all men,
for wheras in all others of your sex by your confession,
idlenesse ingendreth love, in you hate: you
say in the dedication of your booke to your mistresses
the common sort of women, that you had
little ease to passe the time withall, but now seeing
you have basely wron’gd our wearied and
wurried Patience with your insolent invective
madnesse, you shall make a simple conversion of
your proposition, and take your pastime in little
ease
: why? if you delight to sow thornes, is it not
fit you should goe on them bare-foot and bare-
legged. Your idle muse shall be frankt up, for
while it is at liberty, most impiously it throwes
Livi lib. 2. durt in the face of halfe humane kinde. Coriolanus
when hee saw his mother and his wife weeping,
naturall love compeld him to leave sacking
the City for their sakes, “ab hoc exemplum cape”, but
your barbarous hand will not cease to ruine the
senses, and beleager the forces of Gynæcia, not sparing
the mother that brought forth such an untoward
whelp into the world as thy selfe, playing at
blindman-buffe with all, scattering thy dissolute
language at whomsoever comes next: you never
heard of a boy, an unlucky gallowes that threw stones C1r 7
stones in the market-place he knew not whither:
the wisely-cynicke Philosopher bade him take
heed lest he hit his father. “Nomine mutato narretur
fabula de te”
. You might easily, if you had had the
grace, perceive what use to make of it. But you
goe forward, pretending you were in great choller
against some women, and in the ruffe of your
furie. Grant one absurditie, a thousand follow:
Alas (good Sir) wee may easily gather you were
mightily transported with passion. Anger and
madnesse differ but in time. T’were a pleasant sight
to see you in your great standing choller and furious
ruffe
together. Your choller (no doubt) was
A little sinne. too great for a Spanish peccadillo, and your shagge
ruffe seemed so greesly to set forth your ill-locking
visage, that none of your shee-adversaries
durst attempt to confront your follie. But now
let us talke with you in your cold bloud. Now
the lees of your furie are settled to the bottome,
and your turbulent minde is defæcated and clearer,
lets have a parle with you. What if you had
cause to be offended with some (as I cannot excuse
all) must you needs shoot your paper-pellets
out of your potgun-pate at all women? Remember
(sweet Sir) the counsell of Nestor to Achilles: “――Σὺ δὲ μεγαλήτορα θυμòν ἴσχειν ἐν στηθεσσι φιλοφροσύνη γὰρ ἀμείνων.”

Animūum tu pectore
fortem cōontineas,
sibi qui
bene temperas
optimus esto.
It had beene the part of humanitie to have
smothered your anger, hoping amends and reconcilement,
and not presently to wrecke your
spleene. Architas in Tullie would have taught you
Tuscul: 4. another lesson: “Quo te inquit modo accepissem nisi C iratus C1v 8
iratus essem?”
But you (like a hare-braind scold) set
your clawes in the face of the whole world. But
this argues your levitie joyn’d with degenerate
cowardize: for had you but considered with mature
deliberation that (as Virgil speakes) “―― VirgVirgil. Aeneid.2. nullum memorabile nomen Fœminea in pœna est, nec habet victoria laudem.”
Tis a poore atchievement to overcome a woman,
you would never have beene so grievously troubled
with the over-flowing of the gall, neither
would the relish of your furr’d palate have beene
so bitter, as what delicates soever you tasted
should become unpleasing. I read of a mad fellow,
which had lost his goods by sea, that whatsoever
ships had come into the port at Athens, he
would take a catalogue of them, and very busie
would he be in making an inventorie of the goods
they brought in and received, thinking all to bee
his. So you having peradventure had some curst
wife that hath given you as good as you brought,
whatsoever faults you espie in others, you take
that to heart: you run a madding up and downe
to make a scrole of female frailties, and an inventorie
of meretriciall behaviours, ascribing them to
those that are joyned in the sacred bands of matrimonie.
Because you have beene guld with
brasse money, will you thinke no coyne currant?
Because you have suffered shipwracke, will you
disswade any from venturing to trafficke beyond
Seas? Besides, you shew your selfe unjust in not
observing a symmetrie and proportion of reuengevenge
and the offence: for a pelting injurie should not C2r 9
not provoke an opprobrious calumnie; a private
abuse of your owne familiar doxies should not
breake out into open slanders of the religious matron
together with the prostitute strumpet; of the
nobly-descended Ladies, as the obscure base vermine
that have bitten you; of the chaste and modest
virgins, as well as the dissolute and impudent
harlot. Because women are women, you will doe
that in an houre, which you will repent you of all
your life time after. Nay rather, if the ruffe of
your furie would have let you lookt over it, you
would have diverted the floud-gates of your poisoned
streames that way where you perceived the
common shore to run, and not have polluted and
stained the cleere and crystalline waters. Because
women are not women, rather might be a fit subject
JuvenJuvenal. Sat. 6. of an ingenious Satyrist. “Cum alterius sexus
imitata figuram est”
: the reason is, “Quàm præstare potest mulier galeata pudorem,
Quæ fugit à sexu?”

But when women are women, when wee saile by
the true compasse of honest and religious conversation,
why should you be so doggedly incensed
to barke in generall? why should you imploy
your invention to lay open new fashions of
lewdnesse, which the worst of women scarce ever
were acquainted with? imitating the vice of that
Pagan Poet, whose indignation made verses,
whose filthy reprehension opened the doores of
unbridled luxurie, and gave a president of all admired
wickednesse, and bruitish sensualitie, to succeeding
ScalScaliger.3.lib.
Poet. cap. 9.
ages; whom great Scaliger indeed censurethC2 reth C2v 10
not worthy to be read of a pious and ingenuous
man. That Satyr brands all his Countreywomen
with the same marke: “Iamque eadem summis pariter minimisque libido est, Nec melior pedibus silicem quæ conterit atrum, Quàm quæ longorum vehitur cervice Syrorum.”
But he lived in a nation earthly, devillish, sensuall,
given over to a reprobate sense, that wrought all
filthinesse with greedinesse. But you, sir, were
whelpt in a better age, at least in a better climate,
where the Gospell is preached, and “the voice of the
Turtle is heard in our land”
; where you might see
(if you could perfectly distinguish) if you were
not in the gall of bitternesse. Matchlesse beauties
and glorious vertues shining together, you might
behold (if outragious rage had not drawne a filme
over your eye-sight) the goodly habiliments of
the minde combined with the perfection of outward
comelinesse and ornaments of the body. Is
there not as many monuments erected to the famous
eternizing of charitable deeds of women renowned
in their generations, as trophees to the
most couragious Potentates? In the commemorations
of founders and benefactors, how many
women have emulated your sex in bountifull exhibitions
to religious uses and furtherance of pietie?
I might produce infinite examples, if neede
were: but bray a foole in a morter (said the wise
man) yet he will not leave his foolerie: Neither if
whole volumes were compiled against your manifest
calumnies, would you ever be brought to a
palinodie and recantation. Wee have your confessionfession C3r 11
under your owne hand, where you say
you “might have emploied your selfe to better use than
in such an idle businesse”
. True: “Πολλακὶ τοὶ καὶ μωρὸς ἀνηρ κατα και̂ριον εἴπε”.
A foole speakes sometimes to the purpose. If you
must needs be digiting your pen, the time had
beene farre better spent if you had related to the
world some stories of your travels, with a Gentleman
learneder and wiser then your selfe: so you
might have beguiled the time, and exposed your
Mr. Th˙Coriat,
Quid enim maiore
cachinno
accipitur vulgi.
ridiculous wit to laughter: you might have told
how hardly such an unconstant “bella curtizana de
Venetijs”
entertained you, how your teeth watered,
and after your affections were poisoned with
their hainous evils; how in the beginning of your
In his first
Epistle.
thirty yeeres travell and odde, your constitution
inclined and you were addicted to prie into the
various actions of loose, strange, lewd, idle, froward
and inconstant women; how you happened
(in some Stewes or Brothelhouses) to be acquainted
with their cheats and evasions; how you
came to be so expert in their subtile qualities;
how politikely you caught the daughter in the
oven, yet never was there your selfe; how in
your voyages your stomacke was cloyd with
these surfets, and therefore being a traveller, you
had reason to censure hardly of women. Have
you traveld halfe as long againe as that famous
πόλλων δ’ ἀν-θρώπωνἴδεν ἀστεακαίνόονἔγνω Pilgrim, “which knew the fashions of many men, and
saw their Cities”
? Have you out-stript him in time,
and come so short of him in knowledge? Is this
all the manners you have learned abroad, these C3 thirty C3v 12
thirty and odde yeeres? Is this the benefit of your
observations? Is this all the profit your Country
shall reape by your forraine endevours? to bring
home a company of idle humours of light huswives
which you have noted, and divulge them
in print to your owne disgrace and perpetuall obloquie?
Have you traveld three times as long as
an Elephant, and is this the first fruit, nay all the
fruit of your idle addle coxcombe? Certainly
you mis-spent your time in your travels: for it
had beene more profitable for you, if you had
brought dogges from Iceland; better for your
Countrey, if you had kept a dogge there still. But
tis easie to give a reason of your exasperate virulence,
from your being a traveller: for it is very
likely when you first went abroad to see fashions,
twas your fortune to light amongst ill company,
who trying what metall you were made of,
quickly matriculated you in the schoole of vice,
where you proved a most apt Non-proficient, and
being guld of your patrimonie, your purse was
turned into a passe, and that by women. Like a
dogge that bites the stone which had almost beat
out his braines, you come home swaggering:

“Prodiga non sentit pereuntem fœmina censum, At velut exhausta redivivus pullulet arca Nummus, & è pleno semper tollatur acervo, Non unquāam reputant quantum sibi gaudia constant.”

Which if you cannot understand, is to this sense:

A lavish woman thinkes there is no stint

Unto her purse: as though thou hadst a mint,

She C4r 13

She casts no count what money shee’l bestow,

As if her coine as fast as t’ebd, did flow.

Such it may be (I speake but on suspicion) were
the conditions of those minions your minoritie
had experience of in your voyages. Wherefore
none either good or bad, faire or foule, of what
estate soever, of what parentage or royall descent
and lineage soever, how well soever nurtured and
qualified, shall scape the convicious violence of
your preposterous procacitie. Why did you not
snarle at them directly that wronged you? Why
did not you collimate your infectious Javelins at
the right marke? If a theefe take your purse from
you, will you maligne and swagger with every
one you meet? If you be beaten in an Ale-house,
will you set the whole Towne afire? If some curtezans
that you have met with in your travels (or
rather that have met with you) have ill intreated
you, must honest and religious people be the
scope of your malicious speeches and reprochfull
tearmes? Yet it may be you have a further drift,
to make the world beleeve you have an extraordinary
gift of continencie; soothing your selfe
with this supposition, that this open reviling is
some token and evidence you never were affected
with delicate and effeminate sensualitie, thinking
this pamphlet should assoile thee from all manner
of levie and taxation of a lascivious life; as if, because
you cynically raile at all both good and
bad, you had beene hatcht up without concupiscence;
Ira.
Concupiscentia.
as if nature had bestowed on you all θυμὸς,
and no ἐπιθυμία. Twas spoken of Euripides, that he hated C4v 14
hated women in choro, but not in thoro, in calamo,
but not in thalamo: and why cannot you be liable
to the same objection? I would make this excuse
for you, but that the crabbednesse of your stile,
the unsavory periods of your broken-winded sentences
perswade your body to be of the same
temper as your minde. Your ill-favoured countenance,
your wayward conditions, your peevish
and pettish nature is such, that none of our sex
with whom you have obtained some partiall
conference, could ever brooke your dogged
frompard frowardnesse: upon which male-contented
desperation, you hanged out your flagge
of defiance against the whole world, as a prodigious
monstrous rebell against nature. Besides, if
your currish disposition had dealt with men, you
Like for like. were afraid that Lex talionis would meet with
you; wherefore you surmized, that inveighing
against poore illiterate women, we might fret and
bite the lip at you, wee might repine to see our
selves baited and tost in a blanket, but never durst
in open view of the vulgar either disclose your
blasphemous and derogative slanders, or maintaine
the untainted puritie of our glorious sex:
nay, you’l put gagges in our mouthes, and conjure
us all to silence: you will first abuse us, then
binde us to the peace; wee must be tongue-tied,
lest in starting up to finde fault, wee prove our
selves guiltie of those horrible accusations. The
sinceritie of our lives, and quietnesse of conscience,
is a wall of brasse to beat backe the bullets
of your vituperious scandals in your owne face. Tis D1r 15
Tis the resolved Aphorisme of a religious soule
to answere, “ego sic vivam ut nemo tibi fidem adhibeat:”
by our well-doings to put to silence the reports
of foolish men, as the Poet speakes;

“Vivendum recte tum propter plurima, tum de his Præcipue causis ut linguas mancipiorum contemnas.”

Live well for many causes; chiefly this,

To scorne the tongue of slaves that speake amisse.

Indeed I write not in hope of reclaiming thee
from thy profligate absurdities, for I see what
Unde altior esset
casus & impulsae
præceps immane
ruinæ.
a pitch of disgrace and shame thy selfe-pining envie
hath carried thee to, for thy greater vexation
and more perplexed ruine. You see your blacke
grinning mouth hath beene muzled by a modest
and powerfull hand, who hath judiciously bewrayed,
and wisely layed open your singular ignorance,
couched under incredible impudence,
who hath most gravely (to speake in your owne
language) unfoulded every pleat, and shewed every
rinckle”
of a prophane and brutish disposition, so
that tis a doubt whether shee hath shewed more
modesty or gravity, more learning or prudence in
the religious confutation of your undecent raylings.
But as shee hath beene the first Champion
of our sexe that would encounter with the barbarous
bloudhound, and wisely dammed up your
mouth, and sealed up your jawes lest your venomed
teeth like madde dogges should damage the
credit of many, nay all innocent damosels; so no
doubt, if your scurrilous and depraving tongue
breake prison, and falls to licking up your vomitedD ted D1v 16
poyson, to the end you may squirt out the
same with more pernicious hurt, assure your selfe
there shall not be wanting store of Helebore to
scoure the sinke of your tumultuous gorge, at
least we will cram you with Antidotes and Catapotions,
that if you swell not till you burst, yet
your digested poyson shall not be contagious.
I heare you foame at mouth and groule against
the Author with another head like the triple dog
of hell, wherefore I have provided this sop for
Cerberus, indifferent well steept in vineger. I know
not how your pallat will bee pleased with it to
make you secure hereafter. Ile take the paines to
worme the tongue of your madnesse, and dash
your rankling teeth downe your throat: tis not
houlding up a wispe, nor threatning a cuckingstoole
shall charme us out of the compasse of
your chaine, our pens shall throttle you, or like
Archilochus with our tart Iambikes make you Lopez
his godson: we will thrust thee like Phalaris
into thine owne brazen bull, and baite thee at thy
owne stake, and beate thee at thine owne weapon,
“Quippe minuti semper & infirmi est animi exiguique
voluptas ultio: continuo sic collige quod vindicta
nemo magis gaudet quam fæmina”
. Tis your Poets
owne assertion, that ultion being the delight of
Quem diri conscia
facti mens
habet attonitūum
& surdo verbere
cædit. Occultum
quatiente
animo tortore
flagellum.
a weake and feeble minde belongs to us. Thou
that in thy selfe feelest the lash of folly, thou that
confessest thy selfe to be in a fault, nay that thou
hast offended beyond satisfaction, for tis hard to
give a recompence for a slander: thou that acknowledgest
thy selfe to be madde, in a rough furie,rie, D2r 17
your wits gon a woolgathering that you had
forgot your selfe (as I think) Nero-like in ripping
up the bowels of thine owne Mother: for I have
learnt so much Logicke to know “quicquid dicitur
de specie, dicitur de unoquoque, individuo eiusdem speciei:”
whatsoever is spoken or prædicated of the
kinde is spoken of every one in the same kinde:
first therefore to bring you to an impious ατοπον or
inconvenience. Is it not a comely thing to heare
a Sonne speake thus of his mother: “My mother in
her furie was worse than a Lion being bitten with
hunger, than a beare being robbed of her yong ones, the
viper being trod on. No spur would make my mother
go, nor no bridle would hold her backe: tell her of her
fault, she will not beleeve she is in any fault: give her
good counsell, but she will not take it: if my Father
did but look after another woman, then she would be
jealous: the more he loved her, the more shee would
disdaine him: if he threatened her, shee would bee angry:
when he flattered her, then she would be proud:
if he forbore her, it made her bould: if hee chastened
her, she would turne to a serpent: at a word, my mother
would never forget an injury, nor give thankes
for a good turne: what an asse then was my Father
to exchange gould for drosse, pleasure for paine: tis a
wonderfull thing to see the madde feates of my mother,
for she would picke thy pocket, empty thy purse,
laugh in thy face & cut thy throat, she is ungratefull
perjurd, full of fraud, flouting, and deceit, unconstant
washpish, toyish, light, sullen, proud, discourteous and
cruell: the breast of my mother was the harbourer of
an envious heart, her heart the storehouse of poysoned D 2 hatred, D2v 18
hatred, her head devised villany, and her hands were
ready to put in practise what her heart desired, then
Pag. 15. who can but say but my mother a woman sprung from
the Devill? you from your mother, and so Swetnam
is the Devils Grand-child.”
Doe you not blush to
see what a halter you have purchased for your
owne necke? You thought in your ruffe of furie
like Augustus Cæsar, to make an edict that all the
world should be taxed, when your selfe is tributary
to the greatest infirmities: you blowed the
fier of sedition with the bellowes of your anger,
and the coales are burning in your owne bosome,
HorHorace: OdOdes:l.2 “Periculosæ plenum opus aleæ, tractas & incedis per
ignes suppositos cineri doloso”
. Is there no reverence
to be given to your mother because you are weaned
from her teat, and never more shall be fedde
with her pappe? You are like the rogue in the Fable
which was going to the gallowes for burglarie,
that bit off his mothers nose, because she chastised
him not in his infancy for his pettie-Larcenies:
is this the requitall of all her cost, charge,
care, and unspeakeable paines she suffered in the
producing of such a monster into the light? If she
had cram’d gravell downe thy throat when shee
gave thee sucke, or exposed thee to the mercy of
the wilde beasts in the wildernesse when she fed
thee with the pap, thou couldst not have showen
Ingratum si dixero
omnia
dixero.
thy selfe more ungratefull then thou hast in belching
out thy nefarious contempt of thy mothers
sexe. Wherefore mee thinkes it is a pleasing revenge
that thy soule arraines thee at the barre of
conscience, and thy distracted mind cannot chuse but D3r 19
but hant thee like a bumbaylie to serve a subpœna
on thee, the stile and penning of your pamphlet
hath brought you within the compasse of a Præmunire,
and every sentence beeing stolne out of
other bookes, accuseth you of robbery. So that
thou carriest in thy selfe a walking Newgate up &
downe with thee, thy owne perplexed suspicions
like Promotheus vulture is alwaies gnawing on thy
liver. Besides, these books which are of late come
out (the latter whereof hath prevented me in the
designes I purposed in running over your wicked
handi-worke) are like so many red-hot irons to
stigmatize thy name with the brand of a hideous
blasphemer and incarnate Devill. Although thou
art not apprehended and attached for thy villany
I might say fellonie, before a corporall judge, yet
thine owne conscience if it be not feared up, tortures
thee, and wracks thy tempestuous minde
with a dissolution and whurring too and fro of
thy scandalous name, which without blemish
my penne can scarce deigne to write, you finde it
true which the Poet speakes;

“Exemplo quodcunque malo committitur, ipsi Displicet authori, prima est hæc ultio quod se Judice nemo nocens absolvitur, improba quamvis Juven:Sat:13. Gratia fallacis prætoris vicerit urnam.”

What sin is wrought by ill example, soone

The displeased Author wisheth it undone.

And tis revenge when if the nocent wight,

Umpires his cause himselfe: in his owne sight,

He findes no absolution, though the eyes

Of judgement wink, his soule still guilty cries.

D3 Tis D3v 20

Tis often observed, that the affections of auditors
(and readers too) are more offended with the
foule mouthed reproofe of the brawling accuser,
than with the fault of the delinquent. If you had
kept your selfe within your pretended limits, and
not medled with the blamelesse and innocent, yet
your prejudicate rayling would rather argue an
unreverent and lascivious inclination of a depraved
nature, then any love or zeale to vertue and
honesty: you ought to have considered that in the
vituperation of the misdemeanors and disorders
in others lives; this cautelous Proviso should direct
you that in seeking to reforme others, you
deforme not your selfe; especially by moving a
suspition that your minde is troubled and festered
with the impostume of inbred malice, and corrupt
hatred: for tis alwaies the badge and cognisance
of a degenerous and illiberall disposition to bee
ambitious of that base and ignoble applause, proceeding
from the giddy-headed Plebeians, that is
acquired by the miserable oppressing and pilling
of vertue. But every wrongfull contumely & reproach
hath such a sharpe sting in it, that if it fasten
once on the minde of a good and ingenuous
nature, tis never drawen forth without anxiety &
perpetuall recordation of dolour, which if you
had known, your hornet-braines would not have
buzd abroad with a resolution to sting some tho
you lost your sting and died for it: you would not
like the cuttle fish spewd out your inkie gall with
hope to turne the purest waters to your owne sable
hew; ut non odio inimicitiarum ad vituperandūum sed D4r 21
sed studio calumniandi ad inimicitias descēenderes”
, that
you would arme your selfe, not with the hate of
enmity to dispraise vice, but with the study of calumny
to make enmity with vertue: yet tis remarkable
that ignorance & impudence were partners
in your worke, for as you have of all things
under the sunne, selected the bayting, or as you
make a silly solæcisme the bearebayting of Women,
to be the tenterhookes whereon to stretch
your shallow inventions on the triviall subject of
every shackragge that can but set penne to paper:
so in the handling of your base discourse, you lay
open your imperfections, “arripiendo maledicta ex
trivio”
, by heaping together the scraps, fragments,
and reversions of divers english phrases, by scraping
together the glaunders and offals of abusive
termes, and the refuse of idle headed Authors,
and making a mingle-mangle gallimauphrie of
them. Lord! how you have cudgeld your braines
in gleaning multitudes of similies as twere in the
field of many writers, and thrasht them together
in the floure of your owne devizor; and all to
make a poore confused misceline, whereas thine
owne barren soyled soyle is not able to yeeld the
least cōongruity of speech. Tis worthy laughter what
paines you have taken in turning over Parismus,
what use you make of the Knight of the Sunne,
what collections out of Euphues, Amadis a Gaule,
and the rest of Don Quixotes Library, sometimes
exact tracing of Æsopicall Fables, and Valerius
Maximus
, with the like schooleboyes bookes, so
that if these Pamphleters would severally plucke a D4v 22
a crow with you. “Furtivis nudata coloribus moveat
cornicula risum”
, let every bird take his owne feather,
and you would be as naked as Æsops jay. Indeed
you have shewen as much foolery as robberie
in feathering your neast, which is a cage of uncleane
birds, and a storehouse for the off-scowrings
of other writers. Your indiscretion is as
great in the laying together, & compiling of your
stolne ware, as your blockishnesse in stealing, for
your sentences hang together like sand without
lime: you bring a great heape of stony rubbish
comparisons one upon the necke of another, but
they concurre no more to sense, then a company
of stones to a building without morter, and tis a
familiar Italian Proverb, “duro è duro non fa muro”,
hard and hard makes no wall, so your hard dull
pate hath collected nothing that can stand together
with common sense, or be pleasing to any refined
disposition, rough and unhewen morsells
digd out of others quarries, potsherds pickt out of
sundry dunghills: your mouth indeed is full of
stones, lapides loqueris, but not so wisely nor so warily
cramd in as the geese that flie over the mountaines
in Silicia, which carry stones in their beakes
lest their cackling should make them a pray to the
Eagles, where you might learne witte of a goose. “ἢ λὲγε σίγης κρει̂ττον ἢ σιγην ἔχε”.
Either speake peace, or hold your peace. Is it not
irksome to a wise and discreet judgement, to heare
a booke stuft with such like sense as this, “The
world is not made of oatmeale”
? I have heard of
some that have thought the world to have beene composed E1r 23
composed of atomes, never any that thought it
made of oatmeale: “Nor all is not gold that glisters,
nor the way to heaven is strewd with rushes, for a
dramme of pleasure an ounce of paine, for a pint of
hony a gallon of gall, for an inch of mirth an ell of
moane,&c”
. None above the scumme of the world
could endure with patience to reade such a medly
composed of discords. Sometimes your dogrill
rhymes make mee smile, as when you come,

“Man must be at all the cost, And yet live by the losse: A man must take all the paines, And women spend all the gaines: Their catching in jest, And keeping in earnest. And yet she thinkes she keepes her selfe blamelesse, And in all ill vices she would goe namelesse. But if she carry it never so cleane, Yet in the end she will be counted for a cunny-
catching queane.
And yet she will sweare that she will thrive, As long as she can finde one man alive.”

I stand not to descant on your plaine song; but
surely if you can make ballads no better, you
must be faine to give over that profession: for
your Muse is wonderfully defective in the bandileeres,
and you may safely sweare with the Poet,

“Nec fonte labra prolui caballino, Nec in bicipiti somniasse Parnasso Memini.――”

Sometimes you make me burst out with laughter,
when I see your contradictions of your selfe; E I E1v 24
I will not speake of those which others have espied,
although I had a fling at them, lest I should
actum agere. Mee thinkes, when you wrote your
second Epistle, neither to the wisest Clerke, nor
yet to the starkest foole, the giddinesse of your
head bewrayes you to be both a sillie Clerke, and
a starke foole: or else the young men you write to
must be much troubled with the megrim and the
dizzinesse of the braine: for you beginne as if you
were wont to runne up and downe the Countrey
with Beares at your taile. If you meane to see the
Beare-baiting of women, then trudge to this
Beare-garden apace, and get in betimes, and view
every roome where thou maist best sit, &c.

Now you suppose to your selfe the giddy-headed
young men are flockt together, and placed
to their owne pleasure, profit, and hearts ease. Let
but your second cogitations observe the method
you take in your supposed sport: In stead of
bringing your Beares to the stake, you say, I thinke
it were not amisse to drive all women out of my
hearing, for doubt lest this little sparke kindle into
such a flame, and raise so many stinging hornets
humming about mine eares, that all the wit I have
(which is but little) will not quench the one, nor
quiet the other. Doe yee not see your apparant
contradiction? “Spectatum admissi risum teneatis
amici”
? You promise your spectators the Beare-
baiting of women, and yet you thinke it not
amisse to drive all women out of your hearing;
so that none but your selfe the ill-favoured
Hunckes is left in the Beare-garden to make your inuited E2r 25
invited guests merry: whereupon it may very
likely be, the eager young men being not willing
to be guld and cheated of their money they paid
for their roome, set their dogges at you, amongst
whom Cerberus that hell-hound appeared, and
you bit off one of his heads; for presently after
you call him the two-headed dogge, whom all
the Poets would faine to have three heads: You
therefore having snapt off that same head, were
by the secret operation of that infernal substance,
converted into the same essence: and that may
serve as one reason that I tearme you Cerberus the
Jaylor of hell; for certainly “Quicquid dicitur de
toto, dicitur de singulis partibus”
: That which is
spoke of the whole, is spoken of every part; and
every limbe of the devill is an homogeneall part.
Doe yee not see (goodman woodcocke) what a
springe you make for your owne selfe? Whereas
you say tis a great discredit for a man to bee accounted
a scold, and that you deale after the
manner of a shrew, which cannot ease her curst
heart but by her unhappy tongue; observe but
what conclusion demonstratively followes these
premises:
A man that is accounted a scold, hath great discredit:

Joseph Swetnam is accounted a scold:
Ergo, Joseph hath great discredit.

If you denie the Minor, tis proved out of your
owne assertion, because you deale after the manner
of a shrew, &c. where wee may note first a
corrupt fountaine, whence the polluted puddles E 2 of E2v 26
of your accustomed actions are derived, “A curst
heart”
; then the cursednesse of your booke (which
if you might be your owne Judge, deserves no
more the name of a booke, then a Colliers Jade
to be a Kings Steed) to bee the fruit of an unhappie
tongue: thirdly, your commoditie you reape
by it discredit. Nay if you were but a masculine
scold, twere tolerable; but to be a prophane railing
Rabshekeh, tis odious. Neither is this all your
contrarietie you have included: for presently after
you professe you wrote this booke with your
hand, but not with your heart; whereas but just
now you confest your selfe to deale after the manner
of a shrew, which cannot otherwise ease your
curst heart, but by your unhappy tongue: so your
hand hath proved your unhappy tongue a lier.
This unsavorie non-sense argueth you to be at
that time possest with the fault you say commonly
is in men, to wit, drunkennesse, when you wrote
these jarring and incongruous speeches, whose absurdities
accrew to such a tedious and infinite
summe, that if any would exactly trace them out,
they should finde them like a Mathematicall line,
“Divisibilis in semper divisibilia”. Twould put downe
the most absolute Arithmetician to make a catalogue
of them: wherefore I could wish thee to
make a petition, that you might have your bookes
called in and burnt; for were it not better that the
fire should befriend thee in purifying the trash,
and eating out the canker of thy defamation, then
thy execrable designes and inexcusable impudence
should blazon abroad thy drunken temeritieritie E3r 27
and temulent foole-hardinesse to future ages,
then thy booke should peremptorily witnesse thy
open and Atheisticall blasphemy against thy Creator
even in the very threshold and entrance? but
Page 31. above all, where thou doest put a lie on God himselfe,
with this supposition, “If God had not made
them only to be a plague to man, he would never have
called them necessary evils”
: Which I thus anticipate;
But God never called them necessary evils,
Therefore God made them not to be a plague to
man. Or else turning the conclusion to the meane
thus: But God did not make them to be a plague,
but a helper and procurer of all felicitie; therefore
God never called them necessary evils. Were it
not (I say) farre better for you that your laborious
idle worke should be abolished in the flames, then
it should publikely set forth the apert violation of
holy writ in sundry places? one in the beginning
(as I remember) where you falsly averre, that the
blessed Patriarke David exclaimed bitterly against
women, and like the tempting devill you alledge
halfe Scripture, whereas the whole makes against
your selfe: for thus you affirm he saith; “It is better
to be a doore-keeper, than to be in the house with a
froward woman”
. In the whole volume of the
booke of God, much lesse in the Psalmes, is there
any such bitter exclamation? But this is the dittie
of the sweet singer of Israel, whereby he did intimate
his love unto the house of God, and his detestation
of the pavilions of the unrighteous by
this Antithesis: “It is better to be a doore-keeper in
the house of the Lord, than to dwell in the TabernaclesE3 cles E3v 28
of the ungodly”
. Now if you have a private spirit
that may interpret by enthusiasmes, you may
confine the Tabernacles of the ungodly onely to
froward women; which how absurd and grosse
it is, let the reader judge. Doest thou not blush
(gracelesse) to pervert (with Elemas) the strait
wayes of God, by prophaning the Scriptures, and
wreathing their proper and genuine interpretations
to by-senses, for the boulstering and upholding
of your damnable opinion? besides thy pittifully
wronging of the Philosophers, as Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle, &c. whom your illiterate and
clownish Muse never was so happy to know
whether they wrote any thing or no. Your ethnicke
histories, although they rather make against
men than women, yet in your relation you most
palpably mistake, and tell one thing for another,
as of Holophernes, Antiochus, Hannibal, Socrates,
and the rest which the poore deluded Corydons
and sillie swaines account for oracles, and maintaine
as axiomes. The quirkes and crotchets of
your owne pragmaticall pate, you father on those
ancient Philosophers that most extremely oppose
your conceit of mariage: for Plato made this one
of his lawes, that whosoever was not maried at
thirty five yeeres of age, should be punished with
a fine. Further he implies a necessitie of mariage,
even in regard of the adoration of God himselfe:
“…γεννωντας και εκτρέφοντας παιδας καθαπερ λαμπαδα τὸν βιον παραδιδοντας ἀλλοις ἐξ ἀλλων θεραποντες ἀει θεὸν κατα νόμον”: Tis necessary
that there should be a lawfull generation and
education of children, that life as a lampe may continu E4r 29
continue to posteritie, that so there might alwaies
be some to worship God. What more divinely or
religiously could be spoken by a Paynim? How
then durst you say that the Philosophers that lived
in the old time had so hard an opinion of mariage,
that they tooke no delight therein, seeing
the chiefe of them were maried themselves? I
could be infinite to produce examples and symboles
Theognis. to make you a lier in print: “οὔδεν κυρη αγάθης γλυκυρωτερον
ἐστὶ γυναικος”
. Nothing is more sweet than a good
Protagoras. wife. “σημνη̂ς γυναικὸς ὁταν τύχης τὸν βίον ἀλυπον διατελει̂ς”. He that
hath a good wife, hath a merry life. Most famous
is that retortion of Pittachus, one of the seven wise
men of Greece, when he demanded a fellow wherfore
he would not take to him a wife, and the fellow
answered, “ἐὰν καλην γαμω, ἑξω κοινην, ἐαν δ’ αισχραν, ἑξω
ποινην”
. If I take a faire wife, I shall have her common;
if a foule, a torment. The wise man replied,
“ἐαν καλην γαμης, οὐκ ἑξεις ποινην. ἐαν δ’ αισχραν, οὐκ ἑξεις κοινην.” If thou
getst a foule wife, thou shalt not have her common;
if a faire, no torments. There is as much
reason for the one as the other: but tis but wasting
paper to reckon up these obvious sayings.
Let that same acclamation of Horace stand for a
thousand others:

“Fælices ter & ampliùs, Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis Divulsus querimonijs, Suprema citiùs soluet amor die.”

Thrise and more times are they blest,

That in wedlockes bands doe rest,

Whose E4v 30

Whose faithfull loves are knit so sure,

That blamelesse endlesse they endure.

But you that will traduce the holie Scriptures,
what hope is there but you will deprave humane
authors. You taxe Plato and Aristotle of a lascivious
life that by the light of naturall reason were
chiefest establishers of Matrimony, both in regard
Plato 1. l. de leg:
Ar:1.Oecon.
cap.7.
of “œconomicke”, and “politicke” affaires. doe these
things deserve commendations of any, but rather
the scorne and reproofe of all: what a silly thing
it is, let Monsieur Swetnam judge, when Valerius
Page 49. Maximus
relates in his 4. booke, a history of one
Tiberius Gracchus, that found two serpents in his
bed-chamber and killed the male, which by the
prediction of Southsayers designed himselfe to
death, because he dearely loved his wife Cornelia,
and you like an Asse tel this tale of Valerius Maximus,
as if because Joseph tells a tale of one Bias that
bought the best and worst meate which was
tongues, in the market: hee that reades it should
say that one lying Asse Swetnam bought the best
and worst tongues; but certainely if that Bias had
met with your tongue in the Market, hee would
have taken it for the worst and most unprofitable
meat, because from nothing can come worse venome
then from it: What should I speake of the
figments of your dull pate, how absurdly you tell
of one Theodora a Strumpet in Socrates time, that
could intise away all the Philosophers Schollers
from him: is not the vaine and inconstant nature
of men more culpable by this ensample than of
women, when they should be so luxuriously bent that F1r 31
that one silly light woman should draw a multitude
of learned Schollers from the right way: yet
neyther Laertius, nor any that writte the lives of
Philosophers make mention of this Theodora, but
I have read of a glorious Martyr of this name, a
Virgin of Antiochia, in the time of Dioclesian the
Emperor, who being in prison, a certaine barbarous
Souldier moved with lust in himselfe, and the
lustre of her beauty, would have ravished her by
violence, whom she not onely deterred from this
cursed act by her perswasive oratory, but by her
powerfull intreaties by changing vestments
wrought her delivery by him. I would runne
through all your silly discourse, and anatomize
your basery, but as some have partly beene boulted
out already, and are promised to be prosecuted,
so I leave them as not worthy rehearsall or refutation.
I would give a supersedeas to my quill:
but there is a most pregnant place in your booke
which is worthy laughter that comes to my mind
where you most graphically describe the difference
and antipathie of man and woman, which
being considered, you thinke it strange there
should be any reciprocation of love, for a man say
you delights in armes, and hearing the ratling
drum, but a woman loves to heare sweet musicke
on the Lute, Cittern, or Bandora: I prethee who
but the long-eard animall had rather heare the
Cuckoe than the Nightingale? Whose eares are
not more delighted with the melodious tunes of
sweete musicke, then with the harsh sounding
drum? Did not Achilles delight himselfe with his F harpe F1v 32
harpe as well as with the trumpet? Nay, is there
not more men that rather affect the laudable use
of the Citterne, and Bandore, and Lute for the
recreation of their mindes, than the clamourous
noyse of drums? Whether is it more agreeable
to humane nature to march amongst murthered
carkasses, which you say man rejoyceth in, than
to enjoy the fruition of peace and plenty, even to
dance on silken Carpets, as you say, is our pleasure?
What man soever maketh warres, is it not
to this ende, that hee might enjoy peace? Who
marcheth among murdered carkasses, but to this
end, that his enemies being subdued and slaine,
he may securely enjoy peace? Man loves to heare
the threatning of his Princes enemies, but woman
weepes when shee heares of warres, What man
that is a true and loyall subject loves to heare his
Princes enemies threaten: is not this a sweet commendation
thinke you? is it not more humane
to bewaile the wars and losse of our countrimen,
then to rejoyce in the threats of an adversary? but
you goe forward in your paralelling a mans love
to lie on the cold grasse, but a woman must bee
wrapped in warme mantles. I never heard of any
that had rather lie in the could grasse then in a
feather-bed, if he might have his choyce; yet
you make it a proper attribute to all your sexe.
Thus you see your cheefest elegancie to bee but
miserable patches and botches: this Antithesis
you have found in some Author betwixt a warrier
and a lover, and you stretch it to shew the difference
betwixt a man and a woman; sed nos hac a scabie F2r 33
a scabie teneamus ungues”
: I love not to scratch a
mangie rascall, there is neither credit nor pleasure
in it. You threaten your second volly of pouder
and shot, wherein you will make us snakes, venemous
Second Epistle. adders, and scorpions, & I know not what;
are these termes beseeming the mouth of a Christian
or a man, which is “ovo prognatus eodem”, did
not your mother hatch the same Cockatrice egge
to make you in the number of the generation
of Vipers? and I take you to be of that brood
which Homer calls “τανογλοσσοι”, alwaies lolling out the
tongue, and all the Historiographers terme Scopes
that give a most unpleasing and harsh note, quasi
“περισκωπτουσα”, cavilling and taunting, and as Cœlius
wittily notes them to be so called, “quasi Sciopas”,
“ἐν σκία ἔχοντες τὴν ὄπα” having their face obscur’d in darknesse,
so this your booke being but the howling of
a night-bird shall circumscribe thy name in the
dungeon of perpetuall infamy. Thou that art
extold amongst clownes and fooles, shalt be a hissing,
and a by-word to the learned and judicious:
in so much as thine unlucky shrieking shall affect
thee with gastly terrors and amazements: never
thinke to set forth more larums of your brutishnesse,
but as Labienus, who was sirnamed
“Rabies” madnesse, because hee used such liberty of
his detracting tongue, that he would without regard
or discretion, rayle upon all men in his exasperate
mood; When all his bookes and writings
were made a bonfire of (which in those dayes
was a new-found way of punishing untoward
wits) “Eam contumeliam” (saith mine Author) “LabienusF2 bienus F2v 34
non tulit neque superstes ingenio suo esse voluit.”
Labienus tooke snuffe at this contumelious
destruction of his despised labours, he was unwilling
to be the surviving executor of his owne wit,
whereupon in a melancholy and desperate mood
he caused himselfe to be coffin’d up, and carried
into the vault where his ancestors were entombed
(thinking (it may be) that the fier which had burned
his fame should be denied him) hee died and
buried himselfe together. I doe not wish you the
same death, though you have the same conditions
and surname as hee had, but live still to barke at
Vertue, yet these our writings shall be worse then
fiers to torture both thy booke and thee: Wherefore
transcribing some verses that a Gentleman
wrote to such an one as your selfe in this manner
I conclude.

“Thy death I wish not, but would have thee live, To rayle at vertues acts, and so to give Good vertues lustre. Seeing envy still Waites on the best deserts to her owne ill. But for your selfe learne this, let not your hand Strike at the flint againe which can withstand Your malice without harme, and to your face Returne contempt, the brand of your disgrace; Whilst women sit unmov’d, whose constant mindes (Arm’d against obloquy) with those weate windes Cannot be shaken: for who doth not marke That Dogs for custome, not for fiercenesse barke. These any foot-boy kicks, and therefore we Passing them by, with scorne doe pitty thee. For F3r 35 For being of their nature mute at noone, Thou darst at midnight barke against the moone; Where mayest thou ever barke that none shall hear, But to returne the like: and maist thou beare With greefe more slanders then thou canst invent, Or ere did practise yet, or canst prevent, Maist thou be matcht with envy, and defend Scorne toward that which all besides commend. And may that scorne so worke upon thy sense, That neyther suffering nor impudence May teach thee cure: or being overworne With hope of cure may merit greater scorne. If not too late, let all thy labours be Contemn’d by upright judgements, and thy fee So hardly earn’d, not pay’d: may thy rude quill Be alwaies mercenary, and write still, That which no man will read, unlesse to see Thine ignorance, and then to laugh at thee; And mayst thou live to feele this, and then groane, Because tis so, yet cannot helpe, and none May rescue thee, till your check’t conscience cry, This this I have deserv’d, then pine and die.” “Et cum fateri furia iusserit verum, Prodente clames conscientia; scripsi.”

Finis.

F3v