This is to lay before us the Charms and Extravagances of a Blind Love.
It Covers all Imperfections, and Considers neither Quality, nor Merit.
How many Noble Whores has it made, and how many Imperial Slaves! And let
the Defects be never so Gross, it either Palliates, or Excuses them. The
_Womans_ Leaping at the _Mouse_, tells us also how Impossible it is to
make Nature Change her Biass, and that _if we shut her out at the Door,
she’ll come in at the Window_.
Here’s the Image of a Wild and Fantastical Love, under the Cover of
as Extravagant a Fable, and it is all but Fancy at last too; for Men
do not See, or Tast, or Find the Thing they Love, but they Create it.
They Fashion an Idol, in what Figure or Shape they please; Set it up,
Worship it, Dote upon it; Pursue it; and in fine, run Mad for’t. How many
Passions have we seen in the World, Ridiculous enough to Answer All the
Follies of this Imagination! It was much for _Venus_ to turn a Cat into
a Woman, and for that Cully again to take That _Cat_ for a _Woman_: What
is it Less now, for a Fop to Form an _Idea_ of the _Woman_ he Dyes for,
Every jot as Unlike That _Woman_, as the _Cat_ is to the _Mistress_? Let
This Suffice for the Impostures, and Illusions of That Passion.
We are further given to Understand that No Counterfeit is so Steady, and
so Equally Drawn, but Nature by Starts will shew her self thorough it;
for _Puss_, even when she’s a _Madam_, will be a _Mouser_ still. ’Tis the
Same Thing with a Hypocrite, which is only a Devil dress’d up with a Ray
about him, and Transform’d into an Angel of Light. Take him in the very
Raptures of his Devotion, and do but throw a parcel of _Church-Lands_
in his way, he shall Leap at the Sacrilege from the very Throne of his
Glory, as _Puss_ did at the _Mouse_; and Pick your Pocket, as a _French
Poet_ says of a _Jesuit_, in the Middle of his _Paternoster_.