129

Cæsar himself might whisper he was beat. Why risk the world's great empire for a punk?

Cæsar perhaps might answer, he was drunk.

But, sage historians! 't is your task to prove One action, Conduct, one, heroic Love.

'Tis from high life high characters are drawn;

A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn;
A judge is just, a chancellor juster still;
A gownman learn'd; a bishop what you
will;

Wise if a minister; but if a king,

More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'rything.

140

Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,

Born where Heav'n's influence scarce can

Strike off his pension by the setting sun, 160 And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.

That gay Free-thinker, a fine talker once, What turns him now a stupid silent dunce? Some god or spirit he has lately found, Or chanced to meet a Minister that frown'd.

Judge we by Nature? Habit can efface, Int'rest o'ercome, or Policy take place: By Actions? those Uncertainty divides: By Passions? these Dissimulation hides: Opinions? they still take a wider range: Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.

171

Manners with Fortunes, Humours turn with Climes,

Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times.

EPISTLE II

TO A LADY

OF THE CHARACTERS OF WOMEN

ARGUMENT

That the particular Characters of women are not so strongly marked as those of men, seldom so fixed, and still more inconsistent with themselves. Instances of contrarieties given, even from such Characters as are more strongly marked, and seemingly, therefore, most consistent: as, 1. In the affected. 2. In the soft-natured. 3. In the cunning and artful. 4 In the whimsical. 5. In the lewd and vicious. 6. In the witty and refined. 7. In the stupid and simple. The former part having shown that the particular characters of women are more various than those of men, it is nevertheless observed that the general characteristic of the sex, as to the Ruling Passion, is more uniform. This is occasioned partly by their Nature, partly by their Education, and in some degree by Necessity. What are the aims and the fate of this sex: 1. As to Power. 2. As to Pleasure. Advice for their true interest. The picture of an estimable woman, with the best kind of contrarieties.

'Twas

owe:

Fine by defect, and delicately weak, Their happy spots the nice admirer take. thus Calypso once each heart alarm'd, тартира о Awed without virtue, without beauty charm'd;

Her tongue bewitch'd as oddly as her eyes; Less Wit than Mimic, more a Wit than wise.

Strange graces still, and stranger flights, she had,

Was just not ugly, and was just not mad; 50
Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create,
As when she touch'd the brink of all we
hate.
D
Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild,

To make a wash would hardly stew a

When 't is by that alone she can be borne ? Why pique all mortals, yet affect a name? A fool to Pleasure, yet a slave to Fame: 2 Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs, I 12th Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres:

Now conscience chills her, and now passion
burns,

And atheism and religion take their turns:
A very heathen in the carnal part,
Yet still a sad good Christian at her heart.
See Sin in state, majestically drunk,
Proud as a peeress, prouder as a punk;
Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside,
A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.
What then? let blood and body bear the
fault;

70

You purchase Pain with all that Joy can give,

And die of nothing but a rage to live. / 100 Turn then from Wits, and look on Simo's

mate,

No ass so meek, no ass so obstinate: Or her that owns her faults but never mends,

Because she's honest, and the best of friends:

Or her whose life the church and scandal share,

For ever in a Passion or a Prayer:

Or her who laughs at Hell, but (like her Grace)

Cries, Ah! how charming if there's no such place!'

109

Or who in sweet vicissitude appears
Of Mirth and Opium, Ratifie and Tears;
The daily anodyne and nightly draught,
To kill those foes to fair ones, Time and
Thought.

Woman and fool are two hard things to

Finds all her life one warfare upon earth; Shines in exposing knaves and painting fools,

Yet is whate'er she hates and ridicules; 120
No thought advances, but her eddy brain
Whisks it about, and down it goes again.
Full sixty years the World has been her
Trade,

The wisest fool much time has ever made:
From loveless youth to unrespected age,
No passion gratified except her rage:
So much the Fury still outran the Wit,
The pleasure miss'd her, and the scandal
hit.

Who breaks with her provokes revenge

from Hell,

Which Heav'n has varnish'd out and made a queen;

The same for ever! and described by all With truth and goodness, as with crown and ball.

Poets heap virtues, painters gems, at will, And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill.

"Tis well-but, artists! who can paint or write,

To draw the naked is your true delight.
That robe of Quality so struts and swells,
None see what parts of Nature it conceals:
Th' exactest traits of body or of mind,
We owe to models of an humble kind.
If Queensbury to strip there's no compel-
ling,

191

'Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen.

From peer or bishop 't is no easy thing
To draw the man who loves his God or

king.

Alas! I copy (or my draught would fail) From honest Mah'met or plain parson Hale. But grant, in public, men sometimes are shown;

200

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 't is you hide;
There none distinguish 'twixt your shame
or pride,

Weakness or delicacy; all so nice,
That each may seem a Virtue or a Vice.

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

211

Is but to please, can Pleasure seem a fault?