Then, as to the worst part of my treatment of this lady, How many men are there, who, as well as I, have sought, by intoxicating liquors, first to inebriate, then to subdue?  What signifies what the potations were, when the same end was in view?

Let me tell thee, upon the whole, that neither the Queen of Carthage, nor the Queen of Scots, would have thought they had any reason to complain of cruelty, had they been used no worse than I have used the queen of my heart:  And then do I not aspire with my whole soul to repair by marriage?  Would the pious AEneas, thinkest thou, have done such a piece of justice by Dido, had she lived?

Come, come, Belford, let people run away with notions as they will, I am comparatively a very innocent man.  And if by these, and other like reasonings, I have quieted my own conscience, a great end is answered.  What have I to do with the world?

And now I sit me peaceably down to consider thy letters.

I hope thy pleas in my favour,* when she gave thee, (so generously gave thee,) for me my letters, were urged with an honest energy.  But I suspect thee much for being too ready to give up thy client.  Then thou hast such a misgiving aspect, an aspect rather inviting rejection than carrying persuasion with it; and art such an hesitating, such a humming and hawing caitiff; that I shall attribute my failure, if I do fail, rather to the inability and ill looks of my advocate, than to my cause.  Again, thou art deprived of the force men of our cast give to arguments; for she won’t let thee swear!-Art, moreover, a very heavy, thoughtless fellow; tolerable only at a second rebound; a horrid dunce at the impromptu.  These, encountering with such a lady, are great disadvantages.—­And still a greater is thy balancing, (as thou dost at present,) between old rakery and new reformation; since this puts thee into the same situation with her, as they told me, at Leipsick, Martin Luther was in, at the first public dispute which he held in defence of his supposed new doctrines with Eckius.  For Martin was then but a linsey-wolsey reformer.  He retained some dogmas, which, by natural consequence, made others, that he held, untenable.  So that Eckius, in some points, had the better of him.  But, from that time, he made clear work, renouncing all that stood in his way:  and then his doctrines ran upon all fours.  He was never puzzled afterwards; and could boldly declare that he would defend them in the face of angels and men; and to his friends, who would have dissuaded him from venturing to appear before the Emperor Charles at Spires, That, were there as many devils at Spires, as tiles upon the houses, he would go.  An answer that is admired by every protestant Saxon to this day.

* See Letter XLVII. of this volume.