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Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

"Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series)"

These are little and pretty, proper
and fine, and sought out far and near to falsify the nice delicacy of
dainty dames, and wanton women's wills, instruments of folly to play
and dally withal, in trifling away the treasure of time, to withdraw
their minds from more commendable exercises, and to content their
corrupt concupiscences with vain disport--a silly poor shift to shun
their irksome idleness. The Sybaritical puppies the smaller they be
(and thereto if they have a hole in the fore parts of their heads) the
better they are accepted, the more pleasure also they provoke, as meet
playfellows for mincing mistresses to bear in their bosoms, to keep
company withal in their chambers, to succour with sleep in bed, and
nourish with meat at board, to lie in their laps, and lick their lips
as they lie (like young Dianas) in their waggons and coaches. And good
reason it should be so, for coarseness with fineness hath no
fellowship, but featness with neatness hath neighbourhood enough. That
plausible proverb therefore versified sometime upon a tyrant--namely,
that he loved his sow better than his son--may well be applied to some
of this kind of people, who delight more in their dogs, that are
deprived of all possibility of reason, than they do in children that
are capable of wisdom and judgment.


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