She suffers them not to learn on the virginals,[56] because of their affinity with organs, but is reconciled to the bells for the chimes sake, since they were reformed to the tune of a psalm. She overflows so with the bible, that she spills it upon every occasion, and will not cudgel her maids without scripture. It is a question whether she is more troubled with the Devil, or the Devil with her: She is always challenging and daring him, and her weapon [[57]_is the Practice of Piety_.] Nothing angers her so much as that women cannot preach, and in this point only thinks the Brownist erroneous; but what she cannot at the church she does at the table, where she prattles more than any against sense and Antichrist, 'till a capon's wing silence her. She expounds the priests of Baal, reading ministers, and thinks the salvation of that parish as desperate as the Turks. She is a main derider to her capacity of those that are not her preachers, and censures all sermons but bad ones. If her husband be a tradesman, she helps him to customers, howsoever to good cheer, and they are a most faithful couple at these meetings, for they never fail. Her conscience is like others lust, never satisfied, and you might better answer Scotus than her scruples. She is one that thinks she performs all her duties to God in hearing, and shews the fruits of it in talking. She is more fiery against the may-pole than her husband, and thinks she might do a Phineas' act to break the pate of the fidler. She is an everlasting argument, but I am weary of her. FOOTNOTES: [55] Strict devotees were, I believe, noted for the smallness and precision of their _ruffs_, which were termed _in print_ from the exactness of the folds. So in Mynshul's _Essays_, 4to. 1618. "I vndertooke a warre when I adventured to speake in _print_, (not in _print as Puritan's ruffes_ are set.)" The term of _Geneva print_ probably arose from the minuteness of the type used at Geneva. In the _Merry Devil of Edmonton_, a comedy, 4to. 1608, is an expression which goes some way to prove the correctness of this supposition:--"I see by thy eyes thou hast bin reading _little Geneua print_;"--and, that _small ruffs_ were worn by the puritanical set, an instance appears in Mayne's _City Match_, a comedy, 4to. 1658. ----"O miracle! Out of your _little ruffe_, Dorcas, and in the fashion! Dost thou hope to be saved?" From these three extracts it is, I think, clear that a _ruff of Geneva print_ meant a _small, closely-folded ruff_, which was the distinction of a non-conformist. [56] A virginal, says Mr. Malone, was strung like a spinnet, and shaped like a piano-forte: the mode of playing on this instrument was therefore similar to that of the organ. [57] _Weapons are spells no less potent than different, as being the sage sentences of some of her own sectaries._ First edit. XXXV. A SCEPTICK IN RELIGION