Still round and round the Ghosts of Beauty glide,
And haunt the places where their honour dy'd.

See how the World its Veterans rewards!
A Youth of Frolicks, an old Age of Cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without Lovers, old without a Friend;
A Fop their Paffion, but their Prize a Sot,
Alive, ridiculous; and dead, forgot!

Ah! Friend! to dazzle let the Vain defign;

245

To raife the thought and touch the Heart be thine! 250
That Charm shall grow, while what fatigues the Ring,
Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing:

So when the Sun's broad beam has tir'd the fight,
All mild afcends the Moon's more sober light,
Serene in Virgin Modefty fhe fhines,
And unobferv'd the glaring orb declines.

Oh bleft with Temper, whofe unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow chearful as to-day :
She who can love a Sister's charms, or hear
Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear;
She who ne'er anfwers 'till a husband cools,
Or, if the rules him, never fhews she rules;
Charms by accepting, by fubmitting fways,
Yet has her humour moft, when the obeys;

Let Fops or Fortune fly which way they will;
Difdains all lofs of Tickets or Codille;
Spleen, Vapours, or Small-pox, above them all,
And Miftrefs of herself, tho' China fall.

And yet, believe
me, good as well as ill,
Woman's at beft a Contradiction ftill.

255

260

265

270

Heav'n, when it strives to polish all it can

Its laft beft work, but forms a fofter Man
Picks from each sex, to make the Fav'rite bleft,
Your love of Pleasure, our defire of Rest:
Blends, in exception to all gen'ral rules,
Your taste of Follies, with our Scorn of Fools:
Referve with Franknefs, Art with Truth ally'd,
Courage with Softnefs, Modefty with Pride;
Fix'd Principles, with Fancy ever new;
Shakes all together, and produces-You.

Be this a Woman's Fame: with this unbleft,
Toasts live a scorn, and Queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promis'd (I forget the year)

When those blue eyes first open'd on the sphere;

275

280

Afcendant Phoebus watch'd that hour with care, 285
Averted half your Parents' fimple Pray'r ;
And gave you Beauty, but deny'd the Pelf
That buys your fex a Tyrant o'er itself.

The gen'rous God, who Wit and Gold refines,
And ripens Spirits as he ripens Mines,

Kept Drofs for Ducheffes, the world fhall know it,

290

To you gave fenfe, Good-humour, and a Poet.

MORAL ESSAYS.

EPISTLE III.

ΤΟ

ALLEN, Lord BATHURST.

ARGUMENT.

Of the Ufe of RICHES.

THAT it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, Avarice or Profufion, ver. I, etc. The Point difcuffed, whether the invention of Money has been more commodious or pernicious to Mankind, ver. 21 to 77. That Riches, either to the Avaricious or the Prodigal, cannot afford Happiness, fcarcely Neceffaries, ver. 89 to 160. That Avarice is an abfolute Frenzy without an End or Purpose, ver. 113, etc. 152. Conjectures about the Motives of Avaricious men, ver. 121 to 153. That the conduct of men, with respect to Riches, can only be accounted for by the ORDER OF PROVIDENCE, which works the general Good out of Extremes, and brings all to its great End by perpetual Revolutions, ver. 161 to 178. How

ver. 199.

a Mifer acts upon Principles which appear to him reafonable, ver. 179. How a Prodigal does the fame, The due Medium, and true use of Riches, ver. 219, The Man of Ross, ver. 250. The fate of the Profufe and the Covetous, in two examples; both miferable in Life and in Death, ver. 300, etc. The Story of Sir Balaam, ver. 399 to the end.

EPISTLE III.

P.W

HO fhall decide when Doctors disagree,

Wand foundeff Cafuifts doubt, like you and me?

You hold the word from Jove to Momus giv❜n,
That Man was made the standing jest of Heav'n;

And Gold but fent to keep the Fools in play,
For fome to heap, and fome to throw away.
But I, who think more highly of our kind,
(And furely, Heav'n and I are of a mind)
Opine, that Nature, as in duty bound,
Deep hid the shining mischief under ground:
But when by Man's audacious labour won,
Flam'd forth this rival to, its Sire, the Sun,
Then careful Heav'n fupply'd two forts of Men,
To fquander These, and Those to hide agen.

5

10

Like Doctors thus, when much difpute has paft, 15 We find our tenets juft the fame at last.

Both fairly owning, Riches, in effect,

grace

No of Heav'n or token of th' Elect;
Giv'n to the Fool, the Mad, the Vain, the Evil,
To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the Devil.

20

VER. 20. JOHN WARD, of Hackney, Efq; Member of Parliament, being profecuted by the Duchefs of Buckingham, and convicted of Forgery, was first expelled the Houfe, and then stood in the Pillory on the 17th of March 1727. He was fufpected of joining in a conveyance with Sir John Blunt, to fecrete fifty thousand pounds of that Director's Eftate, forfeited to the South-Sea Company by Act of Parliament. The Company recovered the fifty thousand pounds against Ward;