"These reasonings together with a certain niceness of nature, an
honest haughtiness and self-esteem, either of what I was or what I
might be, which let envy call pride, and lastly that modesty, whereof,
though not in the title-page, yet here, I may be excused to make some
beseeming profession, all these uniting the supply of their natural
aid together, kept me still above those low descents of mind, beneath
which he must deject and plunge himself, that can agree to saleable
and unlawful prostitutions.
"Next, for hear me out now, readers, that I may tell ye whither my
younger feet wandered, I betook me among those lofty fables and
romances which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood
founded by our victorious kings, and from hence had in renown over
all Christendom. There I read it in the oath of every knight, that he
should defend to the expence of his best blood, or of his life if it
so befel him, the honour and chastity of virgin or matron. From whence
even then I learnt what a noble virtue chastity ever must be, to
the defence of which so many worthies by such a dear adventure of
themselves had sworn.
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