Page:Works of Sir John Suckling.djvu/330

310 sinned?), let it be a maid, and no widow; for (as a modern author hath wittily resolved in this case) 'tis better (if a man must be in prison) to lie in a private room than in the hole.

end, when an unbacked filly may by chance give thee a fall. 'Tis prince-like to marry a widow, for 'tis to have a taster.

'Tis true, life may prove a long journey; and so, believe me, it must do—a very long one too, before the beast you talk of prove tir'd. Think you upon that (Jack).

Thus, Jack, thou seest my well-ta'en resolution of marrying, and that a widow, not a maid; to which I am much induced out of what Pythagoras saith (in his 2da Sect. cuniculorum) that it is better lying in the hole than sitting in the stocks.

When I receive your lines (my dear princess) and find there expressions of a passion; though reason and my own immerit tell me it must not be for me, yet is the cosenage so pleasing to me, that I (bribed by my own desires) believe them still before the other. Then do I glory that my virgin love has stayed for such an object to fix upon, and think how good the stars were to me that kept me from quenching those flames (youth or wild love furnished me withal) in common and ordinary waters, and reserved me a sacrifice for your eyes. While thought thus smiles and solaces himself within me, cruel remembrance breaks in upon our retirements, and tells so sad a story that (trust me) I forget all that pleased fancy said before, and turns my thoughts to where I left you. Then I consider that storms neither know courtship nor pity, and that those rude blasts will often make you a prisoner this winter, if they do no worse.

While I here enjoy fresh diversion, you make the sufferings more by having leisure to consider them; nor have I now any way left me to make mine equal with them, but by often considering that they are not so; for the thought that I cannot be