The academie of eloquence containing a compleat English rhetorique, exemplified with common-places and formes digested into an easie and methodical way to speak and write fluently according to the mode of the present times : together with letters both amorous and moral upon emergent occasions / by Tho. Blount, Gent.

Women discommended.

LOose Women are whoups, proud birds, which have nothing but crest, and naturally delight in ordure; they are Bats which cannot endure one little ray of light, but seek to hide themselves under the mantle of night; they are Horseleeches, which draw blood from the veins of a House and State, where they exercise their power. They are Syrens of the earth, which cause shipwracks with∣out water. They are Lamiae, who have Hosteries of cut-throats, that kill men under pretext of good usage. They are Harpies, who surprize even from Altars, and in the end become envenomed Dip∣sades, which enforce an enraged thirst upon those, whom they have once bitten. Ho. Court.

A woman without devotion is like a Bee with∣out a sting, which will make neither honey nor wax; is a case covered with pretious stones, to preserve a dunghill.

The tongues of women are like the bells of the Forrest Dodona, which make a prodigious jangling▪

O God! What a dangerous beast is the spirit of a woman! It is able to create as many mon∣sters in essence, as fantasie can form in pain∣ting.

No Owle will live in Creet: In Rhodes no Eagle will build her nest▪ no wit spring in the will of women.

It is an infinite simplicity to commit secrets to a woman, whose heart is as fit to keep what it out to conceal, as a Sieve to hold water.

—As well may I collect the scattered wind into a bag, or from the watery surface scrape the guilt reflections of the Sun, as bring her heart within the quiet list of wives that will obey and love.

Incestuous strumpet! more wanton then La∣mia, more lascivious then Lais, and more shameless th••n Pasophane; whose life as it hath been shadowed with painted holiness, so hath it been full of pe∣stilent villanies.

Her Carcasse (a better name I can hardly afford her outside) was the inside of a Sepulcher, her head was unth••cht as an old Parsonage, her eyes (like lights at the last snuff, when the extinguisher is ready to make their Epitaphs) sunk low into their Candlesticks; her ears, now deaf, now happy, (such was her tongue) they have lost their sense, her nose worm'd like a piece of Homer of the first bind, offended with her breath, bowed to her chin to dam it up; her cheeks hol'd, as the earth in Dog▪days drowth; her lips fit to be kist by none but themselves; her teeth rotten as her soul, hollow as her heart, loose as the shingles of an old silenc'd steeple, scragged as a disparked pale, stood at that distance one could not bite another; her tongue, so weakly guarded, scolds like the A∣larm of a clock; her chin was down'd with a Chi∣na beard of twenty hairs, her breast lank as a quick∣sand, wasted as an hourglasse at the eleventh use; one arm, one leg, one foot she doff'd with day,

and, as a resurrection, don'd with the morrow; her bones (pithless as a stallion for seven posterities) the slightest fears might now make rattle in her skin; her body (wasted to no waist, blasted with lust, as an Oke with lightning) was as familiar with diseases as a Physitian: To conclude, she is odious beyond all comparison: one sight of her would make the heat of youth recoyl into an infant con∣tinence. Heroinae.

The look of a lascivious woman is like that of a Basili••k, which kils Chastity by beholding it.

Diogenes snarled bitterly, when (walking with another) he spyed two women talking, and said, See, the Viper and the Asp are changing poyson. Fel∣tham.

No Weather-cock under heaven is so variable as an inconstant woman: Every breath of wind forces her to a various shape: As if her mind were so neer a kin to air, as it must with every motion, be in a perpetuall change. Idem.

Women are feathers blown in the bluster of their own loose passions, and are meerly the dal∣liance of the flying winds.

There are that account women onely as Seed∣plots for posterity: others worse, as only quench for their fires.

Our daily experience teacheth us, that there are women very crafty, and such as under a pure and delicate skin, with a tongue distilling hony, often hide the heart of a Panther, all spotted over with subtilty, as the skin of this beast with diversity of colours. H. Court.

—Women are more inconstant then light Whirlwinds; trust the Sea with feathers, or March winds with dust rather, and let their words,

oaths, tears, vows passe▪ as words in water writ or slippery glasse. Arg. & Parth.

No Hell so low which lust and women cannot lead unto.

Her tongue is like the sting of a Scorpion.

A Woman is the unnecessary Parenthesis of Na∣ture.