e part, I
propose to you the other, with all the diligence and care I can, to clear
your judgment, not to compel it. God has your hearts in His hands, and
will furnish you with the means of choice. I am not so presumptuous even
as to desire that my opinions should bias you--in a thing of so great
importance: my fortune has not trained them up to so potent and elevated
conclusions. Truly, I have not only a great many humours, but also a
great many opinions, that I would endeavour to make my son dislike, if I
had one. What, if the truest are not always the most commodious to man,
being of so wild a composition?

Whether it be to the purpose or not, tis no great matter: 'tis a common
proverb in Italy, that he knows not Venus in her perfect sweetness who
has never lain with a lame mistress. Fortune, or some particular
incident, long ago put this saying into the mouths of the people; and the
same is said of men as well as of women; for the queen of the Amazons
answered the Scythian who courted her to love, "Lame men perform best."
In this feminine republic, to evade the dominion of the males, they
lamed them in their infancy--arms, legs, and other members that gave them
advantage over them, and only made use of them in that wherein we, in
these parts of the world, make use of them. I should have been apt to
think; that the shuffling pace of the lame mistress added some new
pleasure to the work, and some extraordinary titillation to those who
were at the sport; but I have lately learnt that ancient philosophy has
itself determined it, which says that the legs and thighs of lame women,
not receiving, by reason of their imperfection, their due aliment, it
falls out that the genital parts above are fuller and better supplied and
much more vigorous; or else that this defect, hindering exercise, they
who are troubled with it less dissipate their strength, and come more
entire to the sports of Venus; which also is the reason why the Greeks
decried the women-weavers as being more hot than other women by reason of
their sedentary trade, which they carry on without any great exercise of
the body. What is it we may not reason of at this rate? I might also
say of these, that the jaggling about whilst so sitting at work, rouses
and provokes their desire, as the swinging and jolting of coaches does
that of our ladies.

Do not these examples serve to make good what I said at first: that our
reasons often anticipate the effect, and