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O my Child, I am told that on a sudden you turned mad!
Surely Nurse your fear, or what else it may be, you seem to me to be more mad than I can find in my self to be.
That shews you are mad.
If I am mad, I suck'd the madness from your brest.
I do confess, Child, I have not had those mad vagaries since I gave suck, as I had before.
'Tis a signe you are grown old, Nurse.
I confess, Youth is oftner mad than Age; but dear Child tell me, art thou mad?
Prethee Nurse, lest thou shouldst become mad, goe sleep to settle thy thoughts, and quiet thy mind, for I remember a witty Poet, one Doctor Don, saith,
Sleep is pains easie salve, and doth fulfil All Offices, unless i••'t•• to kill.O Heaven, what shall I do, what shall I do!
What is the matter Nurse, what is the matter you shreek out so?
O Doctor, my Child is mad, my Child is mad; for she re∣peats Verses.
That's an ill signe indeed.
Doctor, did you never repeat Latine Sentences when you have read Lectures, nor Latine Verses, when you did Dispute in Schools?
Yes, Sweet Lady, a hundred times.
Lord, Doctor, have you been mad a hundred times, and re∣covered so often!
Those were Latine Verses, those were Latine Verses Child.
Faith Lady you pose me.
Then Doctor go to School again, or at least return again to the University and study again, and then practise not to be posed.
Nurse, she is not well, she must be put to a diet.
But why, Doctor, should you think me mad? I have done no outragious action; and if all those that speak extravagantly should be put to a diet, as being thought mad, many a fat waste would shrink in the doub∣let, and many a Poetical vein would be dryed up, and the flame quench'd out for want of radical oyl to prolong it; Thus Wit would be starved, for want of vapour to feed it; The truth is, a spare diet may make room in a Scholars head for old dead Authors to lie in; for the emptyer their heads are of wit, the fuller they may be fill'd with learning; for I do imagine, old dead Au∣thors lie in a Scholars head, as they say souls do, none knows where, for a million of souls to lie in as small a compass as the point of a needle.
Her brain is hotly distemper'd, and moves with an extraordi∣nary quick motion, as may be perceiv'd by her strange fancy: wherefore Nurse you had best get her to bed; if you can, and I will prescribe some me∣dicine and rules for her.
Come sweet child, let me put thee to bed.
I will go to bed, if you would have me, but good Nurse believe me, I am not mad; it's true, the force of my passion hath made my Reason to erre; and though my Reason hath gone astray, yet it is not lost: But consider well Nurse, and tell me what noble minde can suffer a base ser∣vitude without rebellious passions? But howsoever, since they are of this o∣pinion, I am content to cherish it, if you approve of it; for if I seem mad,
the next of my kindred will beg the keeping of me for the sake of my E∣state; and I had rather lose my Estate, and be thought mad, than lose my honour in base offices, and my free-born liberty to be inslaved to whores; and though I do not fear my honest youth can be corrupted by ill example, yet I will not have my youth a witness to wicked and base vice.
By no means, I do not approve of these strange wayes; be∣sides, you are a Ward to a gallant man, and may be Mariage will alter his humour; for most commonly those back-holders that are the greatest Li∣bertines, make the best Husbands.
'Tis true, he is of a noble nature, valiant and generous, pru∣dent, and just, and temperate in all delights, and free from all other vices but Incontinency, civil and obliging to all the world, but to me, and I could love him better than life, could he be constant, and only love me as he ought to do a Wife; otherwise, Death were more pleasing to me.