bad, or a peevish-minded man. And then according as they are friendships which the law and dutie of nature doth command us, so much the lesse of our owne voluntarie choice and libertie is there required unto it: And our genuine libertie hath no production more properly her owne, than that of affection and amitie. Sure I am, that concerning the same I have assaied all that might be, having had the best and most indulgent father that ever was, even to his extremest age, and who from father to sonne was descended of a famous house, and touching this rare-seene vertue of brotherly concord very exemplare: ----et ipse Notus in fratres animi paterni. [Footnote: Hor. 1. ii. Qd. li. 6.] To his brothers knowne so kinde. As to beare a fathers minde. To compare the affection toward women unto it, although it proceed from our owne free choice, a man cannot, nor may it be placed in this ranke: Her fire, I confesse it to be more (---neque enim est dea nescia nostri Quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem.) [Footnote: Catul. Epig. lxvi.] (Nor is that Goddesse ignorant of me, Whose bitter-sweets with my cares mixed be.) active, more fervent, and more sharpe. But it is a rash and wavering fire, waving and divers: the fire of an ague subject to fits and stints, and that hath but slender hold-fast of us. In true friendship, it is a generall and universall heat, and equally tempered, a constant and setled heat, all pleasure and smoothnes, that hath no pricking or stinging in it, which the more it is in lustfull love, the more is it but a raging and mad desire in following that which flies us, Come segue la lepre il cacciatore Alfreddo, al caldo, alia montagna, a lito, Ne pin l'estima poi che presa vede, E sol dietro a chi fugge affretta il piede. [Footnote: Ariost. can. x. st. 7.] Ev'n as the huntsman doth the hare pursue, In cold, in heat, on mountaines, on the shore, But cares no more, when he her ta'en espies Speeding his pace only at that which flies.