He
is seldom handsome and often noisome, always troublesome and never
welcome. He prays for all and preys upon all; begins with blessing but
ends often with cursing. If he have a licence he shows it with a grace,
but if he have none he is submissive to the ground. Sometime he is a
thief, but always a rogue, and in the nature of his profession the shame
of humanity. In sum, he is commonly begot in a bush, born in a barn,
lives in a highway, and dies in a ditch.
A VIRGIN.
A virgin is the beauty of nature, where the spirit gracious makes the
creature glorious. She is the love of virtue, the honour of reason, the
grace of youth, and the comfort of age. Her study is holiness, her
exercise goodness, her grace humility, and her love is charity. Her
countenance is modesty, her speech is truth, her wealth grace, and her
fame constancy. Her virtue continence, her labour patience, her diet
abstinence, and her care conscience. Her conversation heavenly, her
meditations angel-like, her prayers devout, and her hopes divine: her
parents' joy, her kindred's honour, her country's fame, and her own
felicity. She is the blessed of the highest, the praise of the
worthiest, the love of the noblest, and the nearest to the best. She is
of creatures the rarest, of women the chiefest, of nature the purest,
and of wisdom the choicest. Her life is a pilgrimage, her death but a
passage, her description a wonder, and her name an honour. In sum, she
is the daughter of glory, the mother of grace, the sister of love, and
the beloved of life.
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