If Queensberry to strip there's no compelling, 200 But graut, in public men sometimes are shown, A woman's seen in private life alone: Our bolder talents in full light display'd, Your virtues open fairest in the shade. Bred to disguise, in public 'tis you hide; There, none distinguish 'twixt your shade or prin Weakness or delicacy; all so nice, That each may seem a virtue or a vice. 210 In men we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind: Those, only fix'd, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway. That nature gives; and where the lesson taught Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault? Experience, this; by man's oppression cursed, They seek the second not to lose the first. Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake: Men, some to quiet, some to public strife, But every lady would be queen for life. Yet mark the fate of a whole sex of queens! Power all their end, but beauty all the means: £4 Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die. 230 Pleasures the sex, as children birds pursue, Still out of reach, yet never out of view; Sure, if they catch, to spoil the toy at most, To covet flying, and regret when lost; At last, to follies youth could scarce defend, See how the world its veterans rewards! Ah, friend! to dazzle let the vain design: To raise the thought, and touch the heart, be thine! That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring, 246 250 Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing: O bless'd with temper, whose unclouded ray 280 Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all, And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, 270 Picks from each sex, to make the favourite ess'd, Your taste of follies, with our scorn of fools; Be this a woman's fame; with this unbless'd, 280 The generous god, who wit and gold refines And ripens spirits as he ripens mines, 290 Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know is To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poct. EPISTLE III. TO ALLEN, LORD BATHURST. ARGUMENT. Of the Use of Riches That it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, avarice or profusion, ver. 1, &c. The point discussed, whether the invention of money has been more commodious or pernicious to mankind, ver. 2, 10 77. That riches, either to the avaricious or the pro digal, cannot afford happiness, scarcely necessaries ver. 89 to 160. That avarice is an absolute frenzy without an end or purpose, ver. 113, &c 152. Conjec tures 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 a miser acts upon principles which appear to him reasonable, ver. 179. How a prodigal does the same, ver. 199. The true medium, and true use of riches, ver. 219. The man of Ross, ver 250. The fate of the profuse and the covetous, in two, examples; both miserable in life and in death, ver. 300 &c. The story of Sir Balaam, ver. 339 to the end. This epistle was written after a very violent outcry against our author, on a supposition that he had ridi culed a worthy nobleman, merely for his wrong taste He justified himself upon that article in a letter to the Earl of Burlington; at the end of which are these words: 'I have learnt that there are some who would rather be wicked than ridiculous: and therefore it may be safer to attack vices than follies. I will therefore leave my betters in the quiet possession of their idols, their groves, and their high-places, and change my subject from their pride to their meanness, from their vanities to their miseries; and as the only cer tain way to avoid misconstructions, to lesser offence, and not to multiply ill-natured applications, I may probably in my next make use of real names instead of fictitious ones.' P. WHO shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me? You hold the word, from Jove to Momus given, That man was made the standing jest of Heaven: And gold but sent to keep the fools in play, For some to heap, and some to throw away But I, who think more highly of our kind, (And, surely, Heaven and I are of a mind,) Opine, that nature, as in duty bound, Deep hid the shining mischief under ground. Like doctors thus, when much dispute has pass'd, We find our tenets just the same at last: Both fairly owning riches, in effect, No grace of Heaven, or token of the elect: Given to the foot, the mad, the vain, the evil, 20 B. What nature wants, commodious gold bestows. Tis thus we eat the bread another sows. P. But how unequal it bestows, observe; Useful, I grant, it serves what life requires, B. Trade it may help, society extend: P. But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend. 30 B. It raises armies in a nation's aid: P. But bribes a senate, and the land 's betray'd n vain may heroes fight and patriots rave, 44 |