21
for grace in the heart than for beauty in the face: take care of inning at the faireſt ſigns; the ſwan hath black ſleſh under her white feathers.
2. Chuſe, not by your hands, for the bounty of the portion. When Cato's daughter was aſked. Why ſhe did not marry? She thus replied, She could not find the man that loved her perſon above her portion. Men love curious pictures, but they would have them ſet in golden frames. Some are ſo degenerate, as to think any good enough, who have but goods enough. Take heed for ſometimes the bag and baggage go together. The perſon ſhould be a figure and the portion a cypher, which added to her advances the ſum but alone ſignifies nothing. When Themiſtocies was to marry his daughter, two ſuitor's courted her together, the one rich and a fool; the other wiſe, but poor; and being demanded which of the two he would rather his daughter ſhould have? He anſwered, "Mailem virum fine pecuni, &c." I had rather ſhe ſhould have a man without money, than money without a man.
3. Chuſe not by your ears, for the dignity
of her parentage. A good old ſtock may nouriſh a fruitleſs branch. "There are many children who are not the bleſſings, but the blemiſhes of their parents; they are nobly descended, but are ignobly minded: Such as Aureliut Antoninus, of whom it was ſaid, that he injured his country in nothing, but being the father of ſuch a child.
There are many, low in their deſcents, that are nigh in their deſerts; ſuch as the cobler's ſon, who grew
