Happy were those restless Souls, if they did like the wise and prudent Chyrurgians, who will not cut off any member, before they have made an operation of all imaginable means for cure and recovery thereof: And that they first learnt to know their own deficiences perfectly, that they might the better excuse those of their Adversary.
O how thrice happy are our well-matcht Couple! who like a Looking-glass for all others, live together in love, pleasure and tranquility, and have banished that monstrous beast jealousie out of their hearts and house; wishing nothing more then to live long together, and to dy both at one time, that neither of them both might inherit that grief to be the longest liver, by missing their second-selves. These do recommend marriage in the highest degree to the whole World, as the noblest state and condition; and despise the folly of those who reject it, imagining in themselves that they have more knowledge and understanding then all the wise men of Greece ever had; who by their marrying demonstrated, that they esteemed the married estate to be the best and commendablest though some of them were married to women, who notably bore the sway.
We may very well then contemn the chattering of Epicurus that pleasurable Hoggrubber, who said, that no wise man would ever give himself in to the Bands of Matrimony; because there is so much grief, trouble, and misery to be found in it. For we see to the contrary, that the Wise men long to be in it, and that the Sun of understanding appears more gloriously in them, when it is nourisht and inlivened by marriage; especially, if they have got, like unto our well-married Couple, good Matches. To this end, all those that are unmarried, ought to look very circumspectly, for the getting themselves such a second-self, that they would never desire to part with. And for the exhortation of every one to this, I will break off and conclude with that faithfull warning given by that great Emperor and Philosopher Marcus Aurelius: saying, Because the life of Man cannot remain without Women, I do warn the young, pray the old, admonish the wise, and teach the simple, that they should shun ill-natured Women as much as the Plague: for I say, that all the venemous Creatures in the World, have not so much poison spread or contained in their whole bodies; as one divellish-natured Woman alone hath in her tongue.