If any Tradesman be troubled with a Rupture in the bowels of his estate, that he cannot go abroad, let him decoct Gold from a pound to a noble, taking the broth thereof from six months to six months, and he shall be as able a man as ever he was. Now, Princely Spectators, to let you see that we are men qualified from head to foot, we will show you a piece of our footmanship. _Dance Antimasque._ [_Exeunt._ _Enter_ PARADOX. Health and jouisance to this fair assembly. Now the thrice three learned Sisters forsake me, if ever I beheld such beauties in Athens. You ask, perhaps, who I am that thus conceitedly salute you? I am a merry Greek, and a Sophister of Athens, who, by fame of certain novel and rare presentments undertaken and promised by the gallant Spirits of Graia drawn hither, have intruded myself, Sophiste like, in at the back door, to be a Spectator, or rather a Censor, of their undertakings. The Muses grant they may satisfy our expectations. Ah, the shows and the songs, and the speeches, and the plays, and the comedies, and the actings that I have seen at Athens! The universe never saw the like. But let that pass. There was another end of my coming, and that was to get some of these Beauties to be my disciples; for I teach them rare doctrines, but delightful; and if you be true Athenians (that is, true lovers of novelties, as I hope you all are) you will give my hopes their looked-for expectation. Know, then, my name is Paradox: a strange name, but proper to my descent, for I blush not to tell you truth. I am a slip of darkness, my father a Jesuit, and my mother an Anabaptist; and as my name is strange, so is my profession, and the art which I teach, myself being the first that reduced it to rules and method, bears my own name, Paradox. And I pray you, what is a Paradox? It is a Quodlibet, or strain of wit and invention screwed[627] above the vulgar conceit, to beget admiration. And (because method is the mother of discipline) I divide my Paradox[es] into these [three] heads--Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter; and first of the first, for the Masculine is more worthy than the Feminine, and the Feminine than the Neuter. [_Draws his Book and reads._ _Masculine._[628] 1. He cannot be a Cuckold that wears a Gregorian, for a perriwig will never fit such a head. 2. A Knight of the long robe is more honourable than a Knight made in the field; for furs are dearer than spurs. 3. 'Tis better to be a coward than a Captain; for a goose lives longer than a cock of the game. 4. A Cannibal is the lovingest man to his enemy; for willingly no man eats that he loves not. 5. A Bachelor is but half a man, and being wed, he may prove more than half a monster; for Aries and Taurus rule the head and shoulders, and Capricorn reacheth as low as the knees.