it private to himself?  In some countries they make nothing of it, ne nobiles quidem, saith [6176]Leo Afer, in many parts of Africa (if she be past fourteen) there’s not a nobleman that marries a maid, or that hath a chaste wife; ’tis so common; as the moon gives horns once a month to the world, do they to their husbands at least.  And ’tis most part true which that Caledonian lady, [6177]Argetocovus, a British prince’s wife, told Julia Augusta, when she took her up for dishonesty, “We Britons are naught at least with some few choice men of the better sort, but you Romans lie with every base knave, you are a company of common whores.”  Severus the emperor in his time made laws for the restraint of this vice; and as [6178]Dion Nicaeus relates in his life, tria millia maechorum, three thousand cuckold-makers, or naturae monetam adulterantes, as Philo calls them, false coiners, and clippers of nature’s money, were summoned into the court at once.  And yet, Non omnem molitor quae fluit undam videt, “the miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill:”  no doubt, but, as in our days, these were of the commonalty, all the great ones were not so much as called in question for it. [6179]Martial’s Epigram I suppose might have been generally applied in those licentious times, Omnia solus habes, &c., thy goods, lands, money, wits are thine own, Uxorem sed habes Candide cum populo; but neighbour Candidus your wife is common:  husband and cuckold in that age it seems were reciprocal terms; the emperors themselves did wear Actaeon’s badge; how many Caesars might I reckon up together, and what a catalogue of cornuted kings and princes in every story?  Agamemnon, Menelaus, Philippus of Greece, Ptolomeus of Egypt, Lucullus, Caesar, Pompeius, Cato, Augustus, Antonius, Antoninus, &c., that wore fair plumes of bull’s feathers in their crests.  The bravest soldiers and most heroical spirits could not avoid it.  They have been active and passive in this business, they have either given or taken horns. [6180]King Arthur, whom we call one of the nine worthies, for all his great valour, was unworthily served by Mordred, one of his round table knights:  and Guithera, or Helena Alba, his fair wife, as Leland interprets it, was an arrant honest woman. Parcerem libenter (saith mine [6181]author) Heroinarum laesae majestati, si non historiae veritas aurem vellicaret, I could willingly wink at a fair lady’s faults, but that I am bound by the laws of history to tell the truth:  against his will, God knows, did he write it, and so do I repeat it.  I speak not of our times all this while, we have good, honest, virtuous men and women, whom fame, zeal, fear of God, religion and superstition contains:  and yet for all that, we have many knights of this order, so dubbed by their wives, many good women abused by dissolute husbands.  In some places, and such persons you may as soon enjoin them to carry water in a sieve, as to keep themselves