ft for themselves,
as upon the nobility or gentry. For what avails it in this case, from
whence their veins have derived their blood; while they shall see the
tallow of a chandler sooner converted into that beauty which is required
in a bride? I appeal, whether my Lord Philautus or myself be the
advocate of nobility; against which, in the case proposed by me, there
would be nothing to hold the balance. And why is a woman, if she may
have but L1,500, undone? If she be unmarried, what nobleman allows his
daughter in that case a greater revenue than so much money may command?
And if she marry, no nobleman can give his daughter a greater portion
than she has. Who is hurt in this case?--nay, who is not benefited? If
the agrarian gives us the sweat of our brows without diminution; if it
prepares our table; if it makes our cup to overflow, and above all this,
in providing for our children, anoints our heads with that oil which
takes away the greatest of worldly cares; what man, that is not besotted
with a covetousness as vain as endless, can imagine such a constitution
to be his poverty? Seeing where no woman can be considerable for her
portion, no portion will be considerable with a woman; and so his
children will not only find better preferments without his brokage, but
more freedom of their own affections. "We are wonderful severe in laws,
that they shall not marry without our consent, as if it were care and
tenderness over them; but is it not lest we should not have the other
L1,000 with this son, or the other L100 a year more in jointure for that
daughter? These, when we are crossed in them, are the sins for which we
water our couch with tears, but not of penitence. Seeing whereas it is
a mischief beyond any that we can do to our enemies, we persist to make
nothing of breaking the affection of our children. But there is in this
agrarian a homage to pure and spotless love, the consequence whereof I
will not give for all your romances. An alderman makes not his daughter
a countess till he has given her L20,000, nor a romance a considerable
mistress till she be a princess; these are characters of bastard love.
But if our agrarian excludes ambition and covetousness, we shall at
length have the care of our own breed, in which we have been curious as
to our dogs and horses. The marriage-bed will be truly legitimate, and
the race of the commonwealth not spurious. But (impar magnanimis
ausis, imparque dolori) I am hurled from all m