were wont to do the grain of alkermes? Assuredly that is an
error. Who seizeth on it, doth neither gulch up nor swill down, but takes
away what hath been packed up, catcheth, snatcheth, and plies the play of
hey-pass, repass.

The fourth article doth imply that my wife will flay me, but not all. O
the fine word! You interpret this to beating strokes and blows. Speak
wisely. Will you eat a pudding? Sir, I beseech you to raise up your
spirits above the low-sized pitch of earthly thoughts unto that height of
sublime contemplation which reacheth to the apprehension of the mysteries
and wonders of Dame Nature. And here be pleased to condemn yourself, by a
renouncing of those errors which you have committed very grossly and
somewhat perversely in expounding the prophetic sayings of the holy sibyl.
Yet put the case (albeit I yield not to it) that, by the instigation of the
devil, my wife should go about to wrong me, make me a cuckold downwards to
the very breech, disgrace me otherwise, steal my goods from me, yea, and
lay violently her hands upon me;--she nevertheless should fail of her
attempts and not attain to the proposed end of her unreasonable
undertakings. The reason which induceth me hereto is grounded totally on
this last point, which is extracted from the profoundest privacies of a
monastic pantheology, as good Friar Arthur Wagtail told me once upon a
Monday morning, as we were (if I have not forgot) eating a bushel of
trotter-pies; and I remember well it rained hard. God give him the good
morrow! The women at the beginning of the world, or a little after,
conspired to flay the men quick, because they found the spirit of mankind
inclined to domineer it, and bear rule over them upon the face of the whole
earth; and, in pursuit of this their resolution, promised, confirmed,
swore, and covenanted amongst them all, by the pure faith they owe to the
nocturnal Sanct Rogero. But O the vain enterprises of women! O the great
fragility of that sex feminine! They did begin to flay the man, or peel
him (as says Catullus), at that member which of all the body they loved
best, to wit, the nervous and cavernous cane, and that above five thousand
years ago; yet have they not of that small part alone flayed any more till
this hour but the head. In mere despite whereof the Jews snip off that
parcel of the skin in circumcision, choosing far rather to be called
clipyards, rascals, than to be flayed by women, as are other n