ct; but it is without
example that this sex has ever yet arrived at such perfection; and, by
the common consent of the ancient schools, it is wholly rejected from it.

That other Grecian licence is justly abhorred by our manners, which also,
from having, according to their practice, a so necessary disparity of age
and difference of offices betwixt the lovers, answered no more to the
perfect union and harmony that we here require than the other:

"Quis est enim iste amor amicitiae? cur neque deformem
adolescentem quisquam amat, neque formosum senem?"

["For what is that friendly love? why does no one love a deformed
youth or a comely old man?"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 33.]

Neither will that very picture that the Academy presents of it, as I
conceive, contradict me, when I say, that this first fury inspired by the
son of Venus into the heart of the lover, upon sight of the flower and
prime of a springing and blossoming youth, to which they allow all the
insolent and passionate efforts that an immoderate ardour can produce,
was simply founded upon external beauty, the false image of corporal
generation; for it could not ground this love upon the soul, the sight of
which as yet lay concealed, was but now springing, and not of maturity to
blossom; that this fury, if it seized upon a low spirit, the means by
which it preferred its suit were rich presents, favour in advancement to
dignities, and such trumpery, which they by no means approve; if on a
more generous soul, the pursuit was suitably generous, by philosophical
instructions, precepts to revere religion, to obey the laws, to die for
the good of one's country; by examples of valour, prudence, and justice,
the lover studying to render himself acceptable by the grace and beauty
of the soul, that of his body being long since faded and decayed, hoping
by this mental society to establish a more firm and lasting contract.
When this courtship came to effect in due season (for that which they do
not require in the lover, namely, leisure and discretion in his pursuit,
they strictly require in the person loved, forasmuch as he is to judge of
an internal beauty, of difficult knowledge and abstruse discovery), then
there sprung in the person loved the desire of a spiritual conception;
by the mediation of a spiritual beauty. This was the principal; the
corporeal, an accidental and secondary matter; quite the contrary as to
the lover. For this rea