When you the dullest of dull things have said,
And then ask pardon for the jest you made.
Here breathe, my muse! and then thy task renew;
Ten thousand fools unsung are still in view.
Fewer lay-atheists made by church-debates,
Fewer great beggars fam'd for large estates,
Ladies, whose love is constant as the wind,
Cits, who prefer a guinea to mankind;
Fewer grave lords to Scroope discreetly bend,
And fewer shocks a statesman gives his friend.
Is there a man of an eternal vein,
Who lulls the Town in winter with his strain,
At Bath, in summer, chants the reigning lass,
And sweetly whistles as the waters pass?
Is there a tongue, like Delia's o'er her cup,
That runs for ages without winding-up?
Is there whom his tenth epic mounts to fame?
Such, and such only, might exhaust my theme;
Nor would these heroes of the task be glad,
For who can write so fast as men run mad?
O fairest of creation! last and best
Of all God's works! creature in whom excell'd
Whatever can to sight or thought be form'd
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou last !-
NOR reigns ambition in bold man alone;
Soft female hearts the rude invader own: But there, indeed, it deals in nicer things Than routing armies and dethroning kings. Attend, and you discern it in the fair, Conduct a finger, or reclaim a hair, Or roll the lucid orbit of an eye, Or in full joy elaborate a sigh.
The sex we honour, though their faults we blame, Nay, thank their faults for such a fruitful theme:
A theme fair! doubly kind to me,
Since satirizing those is praising thee;
Who wouldst not bear, too modestly refin'd,
A panegyric of a grosser kind.
Britannia's daughters, much more fair than nice,
Too fond of admiration, lose their price;
Worn in the public eye, give cheap delight
To throngs, and tarnish to the sated sight:
As unreserv'd and beauteous as the sun,
Through every sign of vanity they run;
Assemblies, parks, course feasts in city-halls,
Lectures and trials, plays, committees, balls;
Wells, bedlams, executions, Smithfield-scenes,
And fortune-tellers' caves and lions' dens;
Taverns, Exchanges, Bridewells, drawing-rooms,
Instalments, pillories, coronations, tombs,
Tumblers and funeral, puppet-shows, reviews,
Sales, races, rabbets (and, still stranger!) pews.
Clarinda's bosom burns, but burns for fame,
And love lies vanquish'd in a nobler flame;
Warm gleams of hope she now dispenses, then,
Like April suns, dives into clouds again :
With all her lustre now her lover warms,
Then, out of ostentation, hides her charms.
'Tis next her pleasure sweetly to complain,
And to be taken with a sudden pain;
Then she starts up, all ecstasy and bliss,
And is, sweet soul! just as sincere in this :
O how she rolls her charming eyes in spite!
And looks delightfully with all her might!
But, like our heroes, much more brave than wise,
She conquers for the triumph, not the prize.
Zara resembles Etna crown'd with snows,
Without she freezes, and within she glows:
Twice ere the sun descends, with zeal inspir'd,
From the vain converse of the world retir'd.
She reads the psalms and chapters for the day,
Cleopatra, or the last new play.
Thus gloomy Zara, with a solemn grace,
Deceives mankind, and hides behind her face.
Nor far beneath her in renown is she
Who, through good-breeding, is ill company;
Whose manners will not let her larum cease,
Who thinks you are unhappy when at peace;
To find you news who racks her subtle head,
And vows-that her great-grandfather is dead.
A dearth of words a woman need not fear,
But 'tis a task indeed to learn-to hear:
In that the skill of conversation lies;
That shows or makes you both polite and wise.
Xantippe cries, 'Let nymphs who nought can say
Be lost in silence, and resign the day;
And let the guilty wife her guilt confess
By tame behaviour and a soft address.'
Through virtue she refuses to comply
With all the dictates of humanity;
Through wisdom she refuses to submit
To wisdom's rules, and raves to prove her wit;
Then, her unblemish'd honour to maintain,
Rejects her husband's kindness with disdain;
But if, by chance, an ill-adapted word
Drops from the lip of her unwary lord,
Her darling china, in a whirlwind sent,
Just intimates the lady's discontent.
Wine may indeed excite the meekest dame,
But keen Xantippe, scorning borrow'd flame,
Can vent her thunders, and her lightnings play,
O'er cooling gruel, and composing tea;
Nor rests by night, but more sincere than nice,
She shakes the curtains with her kind advice:
Doubly, like echo, sound is her delight,
And the last word is her eternal right.
Is't not enough plagues, wars, and famines, rise
To lash our crimes,-but must our wives be wise?
Famine, plague, war, and an unnumber'd throng
Of guilt-avenging ills, to man belong.
What black, what ceaseless, cares besiege our state?
What strokes we feel from Fancy and from Fate ?
If Fate forbears us, Fancy strikes the blow;
We make misfortune; suicides in woe.
Superfluous aid! unnecessary skill!
Is Nature backward to torment or kill?
How oft the noon, how oft the midnight bell,
(That iron tongue of Death!) with solemn knell,
On Folly's errands as we vainly roam,
Knocks at our hearts, and finds our thoughts from home?
Men drop so fast, ere life's mid stage we tread,
Few know so many friends alive as dead;
Yet, as immortal, in our up-hill chase
We press coy Fortune with unslacken'd pace;
Our ardent labours for the toys we seek,
Join night to-day, and Sunday to the week:
Our very joys are anxious, and expire
Between satiety and fierce desire.
Now what reward for all this grief and toil?
But one; a female friend's endearing smile;
A tender smile, our sorrows' only balm,
And in life's tempest the sad sailor's calm.
How have I seen a gentle nymph draw nigh,
Peace in her air, persuasion in her eye;
Victorious tenderness! it all o'ercame,
Husbands look'd mild, and savages grew tame.
The silvan race our active nymphs pursue,
Man is not all the game they have in view:
In woods and fields their glory they complete;
There Master Betty leaps a five-barr'd gate;
While fair Miss Charles to toilettes is confin'd,
Nor rashly tempts the barbarous sun and wind.
Some nymphs affect a more heroic breed,
And vault from hunters to the manag'd steed;
Command his prancings with a martial air,
And Fobert has the forming of the fair.
More than one steed must Delia's empire feel, Who sits triumphant o'er the flying wheel,
And as she guides it through the' admiring throng, With what an air she smacks the silken thong?
Graceful as John, she moderates the reins,
And whistles sweet her diuretic strains :
Sesostris-like, such charioteers as these
May drive six harness'd monarchs if they please:
They drive, row, run, with love of glory smit,
Leap, swim, shoot flying, and pronounce on wit.
O'er the belle-lettre lovely Daphne reigns;
Again the god Apollo wears her chains:
With legs toss'd high, on her sophée she sits,
Vouchsafing audience to contending wits:
Of each performance she's the final test;
One act read o'er, she prophesies the rest;
And then, pronouncing with decisive air,
Fully convinces all the town-she's fair.
Had lovely Daphne Hecatessa's face,
How would her elegance of taste decrease!
Some ladies' judgment in their features lies,
And all their genius sparkles from their eyes.
But hold, she cries, lampooner! have a care;
Must I want common sense because I'm fair?
O no: see Stella; her eyes shine as bright
As if her tongue was never in the right;
And yet what real learning, judgment, fire!
She seems inspir'd, and can herself inspire:
How then (if malice rul'd not all the fair)
Could Daphne publish, and could she forbear?
We grant that beauty is no bar to sense,
Nor is't a sanction for impertinence.
Sempronia lik'd her man, and well she might;
The youth in person and in parts was bright;
Possess'd of every virtue, grace, and art,
That claims just empire o'er the female heart:
He met her passion, all her sighs return'd,
And in full rage of youthful ardour burn'd:
Large his possessions, and beyond her own,
Their bliss the theme and envy of the Town:
The day was fix'd, when, with one acre more,
In stepp'd deform'd, debauch'd, diseas'd, Threescore.
The fatal sequel I, through shame, forbear.
Of pride and avarice who can cure the fair?
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