and avoid turmoil; which now is grown to be another nature to me. So that I come not to your public pleadings, or your places of noise; not that I neglect those things that make for the dignity of the commonwealth; but for the mere avoiding of clamours and impertinences of orators, that know not how to be silent. And for the cause of noise, am I now a suitor to you. You do not know in what a misery I have been exercised this day, what a torrent of evil! my very house turns round with the tumult! I dwell in a windmill: the perpetual motion is here, and not at Eltham.

True. Well, good master doctor, will you break the ice? master parson will wade after.

Cut. Sir, though unworthy, and the weaker, I will presume.

Ott. "Tis no presumption, domine doctor.

Mor. Yet again!

Cut. Your question is, For how many causes a man may have divortium legitimum, a lawful divorce? First, you must understand the nature of the word, divorce, à divertendo

Mor. No excursions upon words, good doctor; to the question briefly.

Cut. I answer then, the canon law affords divorce but in few cases; and the principal is in the common case, the adulterous case: But there are duodecim impedimenta, twelve impediments, as we call them, all which do not dirimere contractum, but irritum reddere matrimonium, as we say in the canon law, not take away the bond, but cause a nullity therein.

Mor. I understood you before: good sir, avoid your impertinency of translation.

Ott. He cannot open this too much, sir, by your favour.

Mor. Yet more !

True. O, you must give the learned men leave, sir.To your impediments, master doctor.

Cut. The first is impedimentum erroris.

Ott. Of which there are several species.

Cut. Ay, as error personæ.

Ott. If you contract yourself to one person, thinking her another.

Cut. Then error fortunæ.

Ott. If she be a beggar, and you thought her rich.
Cut. Then, error qualitatis.

Ott. If she prove stubborn or head-strong, that you thought obedient.

Mor. How is that, sir, a lawful impediment? One at once, I pray you, gentlemen.

Ott. Ay, ante copulam, but not post copulam, sir. Cut. Master parson says right. Nec post nuptiarum benedictionem. It doth indeed but irrita reddere sponsalia, annul the contract; after marriage it is of no obstancy.

True. Alas, sir, what a hope are we fallen from by this time!

Cut. The next is conditio: if you thought her free born, and she prove a bond-woman, there is impediment of estate and condition.

Ott. Ay, but, master doctor, those servitudes are sublata now, among us Christians.

Cut. By your favour, master parson

Ott. You shall give me leave, master doctor.

Mor. Nay, gentlemen, quarrel not in that question; it concerns not my case: pass to the third.

Cut. Well then, the third is votum; if either party have made a vow of chastity. But that practice, as master parson said of the other, is taken away among us, thanks be to discipline. The fourth is cognatio; if the persons be of kin within the degrees.

Ott. Ay: do you know what the degrees are, sir? Mor. No, nor I care not, sir; they offer me no comfort in the question, I am sure.

Cut. But there is a branch of this impediment may, which is cognatio spiritualis: if you were her godfather, sir, then the marriage is incestuous.

Ott. That comment is absurd and superstitious, master doctor I cannot endure it. Are we not all brothers and sisters, and as much akin in that, as godfathers and goddaughters!

Mor. O me! to end the controversy, I never was a godfather, I never was a godfather in my life, sir. Pass

to the next.

Cut. The fifth is crimen adulterii; the known case. The sixth, cultus disparitas, difference of religion : Have you ever examined her, what religion she is of

Mor. No, I would rather she were of none, than be put to the trouble of it.

Ott. You may have it done for you, sir.

Mor. By no means, good sir; on to the rest: shall you ever come to an end, think you?

True. Yes, he has done half, sir. On to the rest.Be patient, and expect, sir.

Cut. The seventh is vis: if it were upon compulsion or force.

Mor. O no, it was too voluntary, mine; too voluntary.

Cut. The eighth is ordo; if ever she have taken holy orders.

Ott. That's superstitious too.

Mor. No matter, master parson; would she would go into a nunnery yet.

Cut. The ninth is ligamen; if you were bound, sir, to any other before.

Mor. I thrust myself too soon into these fetters.

Cut. The tenth is publica honestas; which is inchoata quædam affinitas.

Ott. Ay, or affinitas orta ex sponsalibus; and is but leve impedimentum.

Mor. I feel no air of comfort blowing to me, in all this.

Cut. The eleventh is affinitas ex fornicatione:

Ott. Which is no less vera affinitas, than the other, master doctor.

Cut. True, quæ oritur ex legitimo matrimonio.

Ott. You say right, venerable doctor: and, nascitur ex eo, quod per conjugium duæ personæ efficiuntur una

caro

True. Hey-day, now they begin!

ita per

Cut. I conceive you, master parson : fornicationem æque est verus pater, qui sic generat— Ott. Et vere filius qui sic generatur

Mor. What's all this to me?

Cler. Now it grows warm.

Cut. The twelfth and last is, si forte coire nequibis. Ott. Ay, this is impedimentum gravissimum: it doth utterly annul, and annihilate, that. If you have manifestam frigiditatem, you are well, sir.

True. Why, there is comfort come at length, sir. Confess yourself but a man unable, and she will sue to be divorced first.

Ott. Ay, or if there be morbus perpetuus, et insanabilis; as paralysis, elephantiasis, or so

Daup. O, but frigiditas is the fairer way, gentlemen. Ott. You say troth, sir, and as it is in the canon, master doctor

Cut. I conceive you, sir.

Cler. Before he speaks!

Ott. That a boy, or child, under years, is not fit for

marriage, because he cannot reddere debitum. So your omnipotentes

True. Your impotentes, you whoreson lobster !

[4side to OTT. Ott. Your impotentes, I should say, are minime apti ad contrahenda matrimonium.

True. Matrimonium! we shall have most unmatrimonial Latin with you: matrimonia, and be hang'd. Daup. You put them out, man.

Cut. But then there will arise a doubt, master parson, in our case, post matrimonium: that frigiditate præditus -do you conceive me, sir?

Ott. Very well, sir.

Cut. Who cannot uti uxore pro uxore, may habere eam pro sorore.

Ott. Absurd, absurd, absurd, and merely apostatical! Cut. You shall pardon me, master parson, I can prove it.

Ott. You can prove a will, master doctor; you can prove nothing else. Does not the verse of your own

canon say,

Hæc socianda vetant connubia, facta retractant?

Cut. I grant you; but how do they retractare, master parson.

Mor. O, this was it I feared.

Ott. In æternum, sir.

Cut. That's false in divinity, by your favour.

Ott. "Tis false in humanity to say so.

prorsus inutilis ad thorum?

datam? I would fain know.

Is he not

Can he præstare fidem

Cut. Yes; how if he do convalere!

Ott. He cannot convalere, it is impossible.

True. Nay, good sir, attend the learned men; they'll

think you neglect them else.