y out: what must
the female appetite and concupiscence be, when their reason, their
reformation and virtue, are taxed at such a rate, considering the divers
judgments of our appetites? for Solon, master of the law school, taxes
us but at three a month,--that men may not fail in point of conjugal
frequentation: after having, I say, believed and preached all this, we go
and enjoin them continency for their particular share, and upon the last
and extreme penalties.

There is no passion so hard to contend with as this, which we would have
them only resist, not simply as an ordinary vice, but as an execrable
abomination, worse than irreligion and parricide; whilst we, at the same
time, go to't without offence or reproach. Even those amongst us who
have tried the experiment have sufficiently confessed what difficulty, or
rather impossibility, they have found by material remedies to subdue,
weaken, and cool the body. We, on the contrary, would have them at once
sound, vigorous plump, high-fed, and chaste; that is to say, both hot and
cold; for the marriage, which we tell them is to keep them from burning,
is but small refreshment to them, as we order the matter. If they take
one whose vigorous age is yet boiling, he will be proud to make it known
elsewhere;

"Sit tandem pudor; aut eamus in jus;
Multis mentula millibus redempta,
Non est haec tua, Basse; vendidisti;"

["Let there be some shame, or we shall go to law: your vigour,
bought by your wife with many thousands, is no longer yours: thou
hast sold it.--"Martial, xii. 90.]

Polemon the philosopher was justly by his wife brought before the judge
for sowing in a barren field the seed that was due to one that was
fruitful: if, on the other hand, they take a decayed fellow, they are in
a worse condition in marriage than either maids or widows. We think them
well provided for, because they have a man to lie with, as the Romans
concluded Clodia Laeta, a vestal nun, violated, because Caligula had
approached her, though it was declared he did no more but approach her:
but, on the contrary, we by that increase their necessity, forasmuch as
the touch and company of any man whatever rouses their desires, that in
solitude would be more quiet. And to the end, 'tis likely, that they
might render their chastity more meritorious by this circumstance and
consideration, Boleslas and Kinge his wife, kings of