10.
Scandals to Atheism.
—— a late learned Doctor; who, though himself no great assertor of a Deity, yet was observed to be continually persuading this sort of men [the rakehelly blockheaded Infidels about town] of the necessity and truth of our religion; and being asked how he came to bestir himself so much this way, made answer, that it was because their ignorance and indiscreet debauch made them a Scandal to the Profession of Atheism. Behn.
11.
Excuse for being afraid in a Storm.
Master. Courage! why what dost thou call courage? Hector himself would not have exchanged his ten years’ siege for our ten days’ storm at sea. A Storm! a hundred thousand fighting men are nothing to it; cities sack’d by fire, nothing. ’Tis a resistless coward, that attacks a man at disadvantage; an unaccountable magic, that first conjures down a man’s courage, and then plays the devil over him; and, in fine, it is a Storm!
Mate. Good lack, that it should be all these terrible things, and yet that we should outlive it!
Master. No god-a-mercy to our courages tho’, I tell you that now; but like an angry wench, when it had huffed and bluster’d itself weary, it lay still again. Behn.
12.
Dutch Gallantry
Mate. What, beat a woman, Sir?
Master. ’Psha, all’s one for that; if I am provoked, anger will have its effects upon whomsoe’er it light: so said Van Tromp, when he took his Mistress a cuff on the ear for finding fault with an ill-fashioned leg he made her. I liked his humour well. Behn.