_ Nowe the pleasures of
feastes dooeth not consist in the delicates of the mouth,
nor in the good sauces of cookes, but in health of body
and appetite of stomacke. You may not thynke that any
delicious person suppeth more pleasauntly hauyng before hym
partriches, turtelles, leuerettes, bekers, sturgeon, and
lamprayes: then a vertuous man hauyng nothig too eat, but
onely bread potage, or wortes: and nothyng || too drynke,
but water, single bere, or wyne well alayde, be cause he
taketh these thinges as prepared of God vnto all lyuyng
creatures, and that they bee now yeoue vnto him of his
gentyll and mercifull father, praier maketh euery thyng
too sauour well. The petition in ye begynnyng of dyner
sanctifieth all thynges and in a while after there is
recited some holy lesson of the woorde of God: whiche more
refresheth the minde, then meate the body, and grace after
all this. Finally he riseth from the table, not ful: but
recreated, not laden, but refreshed: yea, refreshed both in
spirit and bodie, thynke you that any chief deuiser of these
muche vsed bakets, & || deintye delicaces fareth nowe more
deliciously? _SPudeus._ But in _Venus_ there is greate
delectacions if we beleue _Arestotell_. _Hed._ And in this
behalfe the vertuous manne far excelleth as well as in good
fare, wiegh you now the matter as it is, the better a manne
loueth his wife, the more he delecteth in the good felowship
and familiaritie that is betwene theim after the course
of nature. Furthermore, no menne loue their wiues more
vehemetly then thei that loue theim eue soo, as Christ loued
the churche. For thei that loue the for the desire of bodely
pleasure, loue the not. More ouer, the seldomer any man
dooeth accompany with his wife, the greater pleasure, it ||
is to hym afterwarde, and that thyng the wato poete knew
full well whiche writeth, rare and seldome vse stereth vp
pleasures. Albeit, the lest parte of pleasure is in the
familiare company betwene theim. There is forsothe far
greater in the continuall leadyng of their liues too gether,
whiche emongest none can be so plesaunt as those that loue
syncerely and faithfully together in godly and christian
loue, and loue a like one the other. In the other sort, ofte
whethe pleasure of ye body decaieth & waxeth old loue waxeth
coold & is sone forgotto, but emogest right christe me, the
more ye the lust of ye flesh decreaseth & vanisheth away,
ye more the al godly loue encreseth || Are you not yet
pe