too, she thou now art cast upon will have much ado to avoid being ugly. Pox on't, men will say thou wert benighted, and wert glad of any inn! Well (Charles) there is another way, if you could find it out. Women are like melons; too green or too ripe are worth nothing: you must try till you find a right one. Taste all—but hark you (Charles) you shall not need to eat of all; for one is sufficient for a surfeit:
I should have persuaded you to marriage; but, to deal ingenuously, I am a little out of arguments that way at this present. 'Tis honourable, there's no question on't; but what more, in good faith I cannot readily tell.
XXIII
Madam,
To tell you that neither my misfortunes nor my sins did draw from me ever so many sighs as my departure from you has done, and that there are yet tears in mine eyes left undried for it; or that melancholy has so deeply seized me, that colds and diseases hereafter shall not need above half their force to destroy me, would be, I know, superfluous and vain, since so great a goodness as yours cannot but have out-believed already what I can write.
He never knew you that will not think the loss of your company greater than the Imperialists can all this time the loss of all their companies; and he shall never know you that can think it greater than I, who, though I never had neither wisdom nor wit enough to admire you to your worth, yet had my judgment ever so much right in it as to admire you above all. And thus he says that dares swear he is
XXIV
Madam,
The distrust I have had of not being able to write to you anything which might pay the charge of reading, has persuaded me to forbear kissing your hands at this distance. So, like women that grow proud because they are chaste, I thought I might be negligent because I was not troublesome; and, were I not safe in your goodness, I should be (madam) in your judgment, which is too just to value little observances, or think them necessary to the right honouring my lady.
