contrary to common use: but I excuse it, and by circumstances both
general and particular, alleviate its accusation.

But to proceed. Whence, too, can proceed that usurpation of sovereign
authority you take upon you over the women, who favour you at their own
expense,

"Si furtiva dedit mira munuscula nocte,"

["If, in the stealthy night, she has made strange gifts."
--Catullus, lxviii. 145.]

so that you presently assume the interest, coldness, and authority of a
husband? 'Tis a free contract why do you not then keep to it, as you
would have them do? there is no prescription upon voluntary things.
'Tis against the form, but it is true withal, that I in my time have
conducted this bargain as much as the nature of it would permit, as
conscientiously and with as much colour of justice, as any other
contract; and that I never pretended other affection than what I really
had, and have truly acquainted them with its birth, vigour, and
declination, its fits and intermissions: a man does not always hold on
at the same rate. I have been so sparing of my promises, that I think
I have been better than my word. They have found me faithful even to
service of their inconstancy, a confessed and sometimes multiplied
inconstancy. I never broke with them, whilst I had any hold at all, and
what occasion soever they have given me, never broke with them to hatred
or contempt; for such privacies, though obtained upon never so scandalous
terms, do yet oblige to some good will: I have sometimes, upon their
tricks and evasions, discovered a little indiscreet anger and impatience;
for I am naturally subject to rash emotions, which, though light and