C’est magnifique! mais ce n’est pas—L’amour. At least, and we imply no more, Lovelace and those who act on such high principles, find their Lux Casta marrying some neighbouring rival. But we may be sure that the singer of our Merry Drollery ditty won his Lass, literally in a canter.
[Part I., p. 2 [our p. 195.] A Puritan of late.
Compare John Cleveland’s “Zealous Discourse between the Independent-Parson and Tabitha,” “Hail Sister,” &c. (J. C. Revived, 1662, p. 108); and also the superior piece of humour, beginning, “I came unto a Puritan to wooe,” M. D., C., p. 77. The following description of the earlier sort of Precisian, ridiculous but not yet dangerous, is by Richard Brathwaite, and was printed in 1615:—
To the Precisian.
For the Precisian that dares hardly looke,
(Because th’ art pure, forsooth) on any booke,
Save Homilies, and such as tend to th’ good
Of thee and of thy zealous brother-hood:
Know my Time-noting lines ayme not at thee,
For thou art too too curious for mee.