Page:Colasterion - Milton (1645).djvu/19

 swainish mindes cannot apprehend, shall such merit therfore to be the censurers of more generous and vertuous Spirits?

Against the last point of the position, to prove that contrariety of minde is not a greater cause of divorce then corporal frigidity, hee enters into such a tedious and drawling tale of burning, and burning, and lust and burning, that the dull argument it self burnes to, for want of stirring; and yet all this burning is not able to expell the frigidity of his brain. So long therfore as that cause in the position shall bee prov'd a sufficient cause of divorce, rather then spend words with this fleamy clodd of an Antagonist, more then of necessity and a little merriment, I will not now contend whether it bee a greater cause then frigidity, or no.

His next attempt is upon the Arguments which I brought to prove the position. And for the first, not finding it of that structure as to bee scal'd with his short ladder, hee retreats with a bravado, that it deservs no answer. And as I much wonder what the whole book deserv'd to bee thus troubl'd and sollicited by such a paltry Solliciter. I would hee had not cast the gracious eye of his duncery upon the small deserts of a pamflet, whose every line meddl'd with, uncases him to scorn and laughter.

That which he takes for the second Argument, if hee look better, is no argument, but an induction to those that follow. Then hee stumbles that I should say, the gentlest ends of Mariage, confessing that he understands it not. And I beleev him heartily: for how should hee, a Servingman both by nature and by function, an Idiot by breeding, and a Sollicitor by presumption, ever come to know, or feel within himself what the meaning is of gentle? He blames it for a neat phrase, for nothing angers him more then his own proper contrary. Yet altogether without art sure hee is not; for who could have devis'd to give us more breifly a better description of his own Servility?

But what will become now of the busines I know not; for the man is suddenly taken with a lunacy of Law, and speaks revelations out of the Atturneys Academy only from a lying spirit: for hee saies, that where a thing is void, ipso facto, there needs no legal proceeding to make it void. Which is fals, for mariage is void by adultery, or frigidity, yet not made void without legal proceeding. Then asks my opinion of John a Nokes and John a Stiles; and I answer him, that I for my part