ind
to them. She wears good clothes, but never better; for she finds no
degree beyond decency. She hath a content of her own, and so seeks not
an husband, but finds him. She is indeed most, but not much of
description, for she is direct and one, and hath not the variety of ill.
Now she is given fresh and alive to a husband, and she doth nothing more
than love him, for she takes him to that purpose. So his good becomes
the business of her actions, and she doth herself kindness upon him.
After his, her chiefest virtue is a good husband. For she is he.

A VERY WOMAN.

A Very Woman is a dough-baked man, or a She meant well towards man, but
fell two bows short, strength and understanding. Her virtue is the
hedge, modesty, that keeps a man from climbing over into her faults. She
simpers as if she had no teeth but lips; and she divides her eyes, and
keeps half for herself, and gives the other to her neat youth. Being set
down, she casts her face into a platform, which dureth the meal, and is
taken away with the voider. Her draught reacheth to good manners, not to
thirst, and it is a part of their mystery not to profess hunger; but
nature takes her in private and stretcheth her upon meat. She is
marriageable and fourteen at once, and after she doth not live but
tarry. She reads over her face every morning, and sometimes blots out
pale and writes red. She thinks she is fair, though many times her
opinion goes alone, and she loves her glass and the knight of the sun
for lying. She is hid away all but her face, and that's hanged about
with toys and devices, like the sign of a tavern, to draw strangers. If
she show more she prevents desire, and by too free giving leaves no
gift. She may escape from the serving-man, but not from the chambermaid.
Her philosophy is a seeming neglect of those that be too good for her.
She's a younger brother for her portion, but not for her portion for
wit--that comes from her in treble, which is still too big for it; yet
her vanity seldom matcheth her with one of her own degree, for then she
will beget another creature a beggar, and commonly, if she marry better
she marries worse. She gets much by the simplicity of her suitor, and
for a jest laughs at him without one. Thus she dresses a husband for
herself, and after takes him for his patience, and the land adjoining,
ye may see it, in a serving-man's fresh napery, and his leg steps into
an unknown stocking. I need not speak of his garters, the t