Page:Wedding ring fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity.pdf/21

 21 face: take care of ioning at the fairest signs; the swan hath black flesh under her white fea- thers. 2. Choose not by your hands for the boun- ty of the portion. When Cato's daughter was asked, why she did not many? she thus re- plied, She could not find the man that loved her person above her portion. Men love cu- rious pictures, but they would have them set in golden frames. Some are so degenerate, as to think any good enough, who have but good enough. Take heed, for sometimes the bag and baggage go together. The person should be a figure, and the portion a cypher, which added to her, advances the sum, but alone signifies nothing. When Themistocles was to marry his daughter, two suitors courted her together, the one rich, and a fool; the other wise, but poor; and being demanded, which of the two he had rather this daughter should have ? he answered: " Mallem virum sine “pecuni, &c. I had rathet she should have a "man without money, than money without a "man." 3. Choose not by your ears, for the digni- ty of her parentage. A good old stock may nourish a fruitless branch. There are many children who are not the blessings, but the blemishes of their parents; they are nobly descended, but ignobly minded: Such was Aurelius Antoninus, of whom it was said, that he injured his country of nothing, but being father of such a child. There are many low in their decents, that are high in their deserts : Such as the cobler's son, who brew