NEW ATLANTIS. 393 



very bargain ; wherein is sought alliance, or portion. 

 or reputation, with some desire (almost indifferent) of 

 issue ; and not the faithful nuptial union of man and 

 wife, that was first instituted. Neither is it possible 

 that those that have cast away so basely so much of 

 their strength, should greatly esteem children, (being 

 of the same matter, 1 ) as chaste men do. So likewise 

 during marriage, is the case much amended, as it ought 

 to be if those things were tolerated only for necessity? 

 No, but they remain still as a very affront to marriage. 

 The haunting of those dissolute places, or resort to 

 courtesans, are no more punished in married men than 

 in bachelors. And the depraved custom _ of change^ 

 and the delight in meretricious embracements, (where 

 sin is turned into art,) 2 maketh marriage a dull thing, 

 and a kind of imposition or tax. They hear you de 

 fend these tilings, as done to avoid greater evils ; as 

 advoutries, deflouring of virgins, unnatural lust, and 

 the like. But they say this is a preposterous wisdom ; 

 and they call it io^ s offer, who to save his guests 

 from abusing, offered his daughters : nay they say 

 farther that there is little gained in this ; for that the 

 same vices and appetites do still remain and abound ; 

 unlawful lust being like a furnace, that if you stop the 

 flames altogether, it will quench; but if you give it any 

 vent, it will rage. As for masculine love, they have 

 no touch of it ; 3 and yet there are not so faithful and 

 inviolate friendships in the world again as are there ; 

 and to speak generally, (as I said before,) I have not 



1 liberi (^Jars nostrl altera). 



2 Non v era giunto ancor Sardanapalo 

 A mostrar cio ch in eamera si puote. 



DANTE, Paradiso, xiv. JR. L. E. 

 8 istos nefando quidem norunt. 



