Quoth Hudibras, I smell a rat.
Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate.
For though the thesis which thou lay'st
Be true adamussim as thou say'st.
(For that Bear-baiting should appear
Jure divino lawfuller
Than Synods are, thou dost deny,
Totidem verbis, so do I,)
Yet there is a fallacy in this;
For, if by thy Homœsis,
Tussis pro crepitu, an art
Under a Cough to slur a Fart,
Thou wouldst sophistically imply,
Both are unlawful, I deny.
[14]: Mémoires de Clarendon, t. II, p. 65.
[15]: «Mr. Evelyn tells me of several of the menial servants of the Court lacking bread, that have not received a farthing wages since the king's coming in.» (1667. Pepys.)
Mr. Povy says that to this day the king do follow the women as much as he ever did.—That the Duke of York hath come out of his wife's bed and gone to others laid in bed for him; that the family (of the duke) is in horrible debt, by spending above 60000 liv. per annum, when he hath not 40000 liv.
It is certain that, as it now is, the seamen of England, in my conscience, would, if they could, go over and serve the King of France or Holland, rather than us. (24 juin 1667. Ibid.)
[16]: Voir une Étude détaillée sur Rochester, par M. Forgues. (Revue des Deux-Mondes, août et septembre 1857.)
[17]: When she is young, she whores herself for sport:
And when she's old, she bawds for her support....
She is a snare, a shamble, a stews.
Her meat and sawce she does for lechery chuse,
And does in laziness delight the more,
Because by that she is provoked to whore.
Ungrateful, treacherous, enviously enclined,
Wild beasts are tamed, floods easier far confined,
Than is her stubborn and rebellious mind....
Her temper so extravagant we find,
She hates or is impertinently kind.
Would she be grave, she then looks like a devil,
And like a fool or whore, when she be civil....
Contentious, wicked, and not fit to trust,
And covetous to spend it on her lust.
[18]: Pepys.
[19]: «Je ne sais où ce fou de Crofts avait pris que les Moscovites avaient tous de belles femmes, et que leurs femmes avaient toutes la jambe belle. Le roi soutint qu'il n'y en avait point de si belle que celle de Mlle Stewart. Elle, pour soutenir la gageure, se mit à la montrer jusqu'au-dessus du genou.» (Grammont.)