The Seventeenth ADVERTISEMENT.
A doubt arising upon the truth of a usual Saying, That a man must eat a peck of Salt with another, before he can perfectly know him. Apollo makes the point be argued in a gene∣ral Assembly of Learned men which he causeth to be cal∣led for that purpose.
THe common saying, That to know a man exactly, one must eat a peck of salt with him, being questioned by some Vertuosi, Apollo being unwilling that the Addages of the Learned, which are general Rules, and inviolable Laws, by which his Vertuosi steer their lives; being I say, un∣willing that the truth of them should be any waies scrupled at; many daies since made it be disputed very exactly and diligently in a general Assembly of the Vertuosi: Where this saying was proved to be so true, as many of the Assembly were of opinion that half a peck more should be added to the former dose; grounding their Judgements upon this appa∣rent reason, That the shamefull vice of dissembling, and infamous practice of hypocrisie being known daily to encrease amongst men, it stood with all the grounds of good Arithmatick, that as corruptions encreased in wicked men, necessary remedies should be multiplyed by the Learned, whereby stoutly to resist vice in its rise. But not so farr to shame the pre∣sent age, as to shew, that whilst the malady of vice encresed in the world, remedies grew less, the wiser sort of the Vertuosi thought it not good to alter the ancient measure; wherefore it was generally concluded by them all, that the saying was very true, for what concerned men; but was very false in women, who without eating either salt or oyle, knew the very thoughts of their husbands the first night they lay with them.