Walter Charleton on Love

One of the manuscripts I've been looking at in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is a collection of various papers of Walter Charleton, a seventeenth-century natural philosopher and physician. In my thesis, I'll be looking at his main natural theological work, The Darkness of Atheism Dispelled by the Light of Nature (1652), and I like to peruse these collections (as I do for each of the main people I'm studying) to see if I can find anything interesting that might shed some light on his personality and ideas. In this collection I came across a couple of intriguing pieces - nothing at all to do with my research, but intriguing nonetheless. I don't quite know what to make of them!

A civil Valediction to a Mistress, written at the request of a Friend

I’ll tell you news, Irene, strange and surprising news. Who of all men in the world, can you imagine, is lately changed from a most licentious wanton, to an austere teacher of chastity? Even Don Cupid himself. Nay start not, Madame; this is neither the greatest miracle that [an] invisible magician has wrought, nor a poetic fiction. For, I have it from the mouth (and if I be not very much deceived, from the heart also) of no worse man than your most passionate admirer and favourite, Eugenio; that while he sought to preserve his faith to you alone, during your three months absence, he found it not impossible to abstain from your whole sex for ever: and that by reducing all the streams of his desires into one channel, he learned the art of making them flow more calmly and within the banks of reason. By keeping one Lent out of devotion to you, his Saint; he has discovered it to be no such hard matter to profess himself a Carthusian during life. You see then, sweet Irene, how two contrary effects may arise from one and the same cause: that the same ardent passion which so long together urged him to pursue you for enjoyment, now moves him to decline it. Thus is he become the convert of his own love: and his fidelity has proved the sole cause of his change. It was neither want nor satiety, he swears, that brought him to understand the advantages of fasting; nor an appetite to any new dish, that made him loathe his Chapon bouille; nor weakness of stomach, that hinders him from feasting upon your dainties. No, Irene, trust me there has been nothing like disdain or contempt in the case: only excess of constancy has acquainted him with the pleasures of abstinence. By the rigorous experiment upon which you put him, he has learned, that not to covet, is altogether as sweet as to enjoy; and that to a man of reason, a lasting quiet, though a little dull and melancholic, ought yet to be more grateful, that a few tumultuous moments of that sensual pleasure, which is common also to his horses and dogs.
But let not this so unexpected alteration discompose you, madame. For, Eugenio is still your votary, as full of respect and submission, as when he breathed forth his first vows to you. He will always continue to offer sacrifices to you; but instead of the bulls and goats he used to lead to your altars, he intends henceforth to bring perfumes and spices for incense. His flame is not extinct, but only refined; his affection still equally fervent, only removed from the temple to the Deity, from the fading beauties of your body, to the more charming and permanent excellencies of your mind. And you have only exchanged an importunate servant, for a perfect friend: one from whose innocent conversation, you may reap the fruit of more solid content and solace, than can be expected from the highest transports of a sensual amour; which in truth does often debauch and inflame, never satisfy the appetite. I would have you, therefore, to congratulate as well your own, as his felicity in this his admirable transformation, and to applaud in him that virtue, which results entirely from his justice and loyalty to you, and which only can give him a right to the honor of your generous amity. Whereof no man is, or can ever be more zealously ambitious, than honest and grateful Eugenio will (I am most confident) always demonstrate himself to be. So will also his and your
Most faithful
Lysimachus

I wonder what Irene made of this?! I confess I did like the bit about his affection being removed "from the fading beauties of your body, to the more charming and permanent excellencies of your mind," but what girl wants to be informed that the result of her lover attempting to remain faithful to her while she was away for three months was that he has given up on women completely and decided to become chaste? And that a man "of reason" will value quietness of temper and desire above sensual pleasures that his horses and dogs also engage in? Very strange indeed.

And then further on in the book was this poem:

Love Refined

Since we met last, Irene, I am grown
Entirely yours, by being more my own.
By self-denial, I at once obey
Your power, and re-assume my reason's sway.
Subduing my desires, I them possess;
And out of want extract a happiness.
From holy precepts I have learned the art,
To purge my passion, and refine my heart.
Instead of bulls and goats, I used to bring
(To wanton Love a grateful offering)
I’ll henceforth on your altar burn sweet spice,
And fragrant gums, in purer sacrifice:
With pious thoughts, your shrine I will frequent;
And in chaste vows my saint-like ardors vent.
My guilty flame’s extinct, and in its room
Is kindled such as lived in Tullia's tomb,
Watching her ashes fifteen hundred years;
A flame exempt from lust, from grief, from fears.
This shall your honour, and my faith secure;
And make our secret kindness still endure.
Lamps give light longest, where the air is calm:
And only virtue friendship can embalm.