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Well sir, I'll tell him so. By your clock sir it should be almost one, for your head rung noon some half hour ago. Good Signior Cornelio be not too mankind against your wife, say you're a cuckold (as the best that is may be so at time) will you make a trumpet of your own horns? Itis not Leaf Sir, 'Tis pudding cane Ta I pray you see sir, for I cannot read. Then give me leave to speak, sir, that hath all this while be silent: I have herd you with extreme patience ence, now therefore prick up your , and vouchsafe me audience. I am here, for default of better, of counsel with the fair Gazetta, and though her self had be best able to defend her self, if she had been here, and would have pleased to put forth the Buckler, which Nature hath given all woe men, I mean her tongue. Yet since he either vouchsafes it not, or thinks her innocence a sufficient shield against your jealous accusati ons, I will presume to undertake the defence of that absent & honourable Lady, whose sworn Knight I am; and her of all that name (for Lady is grown a common name to their whole sex) which sex I have ever loved from ̄ my youth, and shall never cease to love, till I want wit to admire. It is a hea y case, to see how this light sex is tu ̄ bled and tossed from post to pillar, under the un vory breath of every humourous Peasant: Gaz , you said, is unchaste, distoyall, and I wot not what; Alas, is it her fault? is she not a woman did she not suck it (as others of her sex do) from her mother's breast? and will you condemn that, as her fault, which is her Nature? Alas, sir, you must con sider, a woman is and unfinished Creature, delivered would styly to the world, before Nature had set to that which should have made them per ct. Faults they have (no doubt) but are we free? Turn your eye into your self (good Signeur Cor ) and weigh your own imperfection with hers: If she be wanton abroad, are not you wanting at home? if she be , are not you ? If she be high set, are not you taken down? If she b a Courtesan, are not you a Cuckold? But if our own imperfections will not teach us to bear with theirs; yet let their virtues persuade us: let us endure their bade qualities for their good; allow the prickle for the Rose; the bracke for the Velvet; the paring for the cheese, and so forth: if you say they range abroad, consider it is nothing but to avoid idleness at home: their nature is still to be doing: keep um a doing at home; let them practice one good quality or other, either sowing, singing, playing, chiding, dancing or so, & these will put such idle toys out of their heads into yours: but if you cannot find them variety of business within doors, yet at least imitate the ancient wise Citizens of this City, who used carefully to provide their wives gardens near the town, to plant, to grafted in, as occasion served, only to keep um from I dlenesse. As to her unquietness (which some have rudely termed shrewishness) though the fault be in her, yet the cause is in you. What so call e as the sea of it own nature? Art was never able to equal it: your dicing tables, nor your bowling alleys are not comparable to it; yet if a blast of wind do but cross it, not so turbulent & violent and ele meant in the world: So (nature in lieu of women's scarcity of wit, having endued them with a large portion of will) if they may (without impeach) enjoy their wills, no quieter creatures under heaven: but if the breath of their husba ̄ ds mouths once cross their wills, nothing more tempestuous. Why the ̄ , sir, should you husbands cross your wives wills thus, considering the law all owes the ̄ no wills at all at their death's, because it intended they should have their wills while they lived? Now (S r) for these Cuckooish songs of yours, of Cuckolds, horns, grafting, and such Like; what are they, but mere imaginary toys, bred out of your own heads, as your own, and so by tradition delivered from man to man, Like Scarecrows, to terrify fools from this earthly paradise of wedlock, coin worser at first by some spent Poets, superannated Bachelors, or some that were scarce men of their hands; who, Like the Fox, having lost his tail, would persuade others to loose theirs for company? Again, for your Cuckold, what is it but a mere fiction? show me any such creature in nature; if there be, I could never see it, neither could I ever find any sensible difference betwixt a Cuckold and a Christian creature. To conclude, let Po ets coin, or fools credit what they list; for mine own partly, I am clear of this opinion, that your Cuckold is a mere Chym ra, and that there are no Cuckolds in the world, but those that have wives: and so I will leave them. No such matter, a my credit, sir.