“‘Gentlemen,’ said she, ‘much it is against my will to forbear any time the executing of my just revenge upon this naughty creature, a man in nothing but in deceiving women. But because I see you are young, and like enough to have the power, if you would have the mind, to do much more mischief than he, I am content upon this bad subject to read a lecture to your virtue. This man called Pamphilus, in birth I must confess is noble, but what is that to him, if it shall be a stain to his dead ancestors to have left such an offspring, in shape as you see, not uncomely, indeed the fit mask of his disguised falsehood, in conversation wittily pleasant, and pleasantly gamesome; his eyes full of merry simplicity, his words, of hearty companionableness: and such an {219} one, whose head one would not think so stayed as to think mischievously; delighted in all such things, which by imparting the delight to others, makes the user thereof welcome, as, music, dancing, hunting, feasting, riding, and such like. And to conclude, such an one, as who can keep him at arm’s-end, need never wish a better companion. But under these qualities lies such a poisonous adder, as I will tell you. For by those gifts of nature and fortune, being in all places acceptable, he creeps, nay, to say, truly, he flies so into the favour of poor silly women, that I would be too much ashamed to confess, if I had not revenge in my hand as well as shame in my cheeks. For his heart being wholly delighted in deceiving us, we could never be warned, but rather one bird caught, served for a stale to bring in more. For the more he got, the more still he showed that he, as it were, gave way to his new mistress when he betrayed his promises to the former. The cunning of his flattery, the readiness of his tears, the infiniteness of his vows, were but among the weakest threads of his net. But the stirring our own passions, and by the entrance of them, to make himself lord of our forces, there lay his master’s part of cunning, making us now jealous, now envious, now proud of what he had, desirous of more; now giving one the triumph, to see him that was prince of many, subject to her; now with an estranged look, making her fear the loss of that mind, which indeed could never be had: never ceasing humbleness and diligence, till he had embarked us in some such disadvantage that we could not return dry-shod; and then suddenly a tyrant, but a crafty tyrant. For so would he use his imperiousness, that we had a delightful fear, and an awe, which made us loth to lose our hope. And, which is strangest, when sometimes with late repentance I think of it, I must confess, even in the greatest tempest of my judgment was I never driven to think him excellent; and yet so could set my mind, both to get and keep him, as though therein had laid my felicity: like them I have seen play at the ball, grow extremely earnest, who should have the ball, and yet every one knew it was but a ball. But in the