“Quando habeo multos cognatos, quid opus mihi sit liberis? 
        Nunc bene vivo et fortunate, atque animo ut lubet. 
        Mea bona mea morte cognatis dicam interpartiant. 
        Illi apud me edunt, me curant, visunt quid agam, ecquid velim,
        Qui mihi mittunt munera, ad prandium, ad coenam vocant.”

       “Whilst I have kin, what need I brats to have? 
        Now I live well, and as I will, most brave. 
        And when I die, my goods I’ll give away
        To them that do invite me every day. 
        That visit me, and send me pretty toys,
        And strive who shall do me most courtesies.”

This respect thou shalt have in like manner, living as he did, a single man.  But if thou marry once, [5813]_cogitato in omni vita te servum fore_, bethink thyself what a slavery it is, what a heavy burden thou shalt undertake, how hard a task thou art tied to, (for as Hierome hath it, qui uxorem habet, debitor est, et uxoris servus alligatus,) and how continuate, what squalor attends it, what irksomeness, what charges, for wife and children are a perpetual bill of charges; besides a myriad of cares, miseries, and troubles; for as that comical Plautus merrily and truly said, he that wants trouble, must get to be master of a ship, or marry a wife; and as another seconds him, wife and children have undone me; so many and such infinite encumbrances accompany this kind of life.  Furthermore, uxor intumuit, &c., or as he said in the comedy, [5814]_Duxi uxorem, quam ibi miseriam vidi, nati filii, alia cura_.  All gifts and invitations cease, no friend will esteem thee, and thou shalt be compelled to lament thy misery, and make thy moan with [5815]Bartholomeus Scheraeus, that famous poet laureate, and professor of Hebrew in Wittenberg:  I had finished this work long since, but that inter alia dura et tristia quae misero mihi pene tergum fregerunt, (I use his own words) amongst many miseries which almost broke my back, [Greek:  syzygia] ob Xantipismum, a shrew to my wife tormented my mind above measure, and beyond the rest.  So shalt thou be compelled to complain, and to cry out at last, with [5816]Phoroneus the lawyer, “How happy had I been, if I had wanted a wife!” If this which I have said will not suffice, see more in Lemnius lib. 4. cap. 13. de occult. nat. mir. Espensaeus de continentia, lib. 6. cap. 8. Kornman de virginitate, Platina in Amor. dial.  Practica artis amandi, Barbarus de re uxoria, Arnisaeus in polit. cap. 3. and him that is instar omnium, Nevisanus the lawyer, Sylva nuptial, almost in every page.

SUBSECT.  IV.—­Philters, Magical and Poetical Cures.