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: Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs,

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, pronder 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

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

hit;

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,

But he's a bolder man who dares be well. Her ev'ry turn with violence pursued, 131 Nor more a storm her hate than gratitude: To that each Passion turns or soon or

late;

Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate.

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,

'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?

So when the sun's broad beam has tired the sight,

All mild ascends the moon's more sober light,

Serene in virgin modesty she shines,
And unobserv'd the glaring orb declines.
O! blest with temper, whose
clouded ray

un

257

Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day; She who can love a sister's charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear; She who ne'er auswers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most when she obeys; Let Fops or Fortune fly which way they will,

Disdains all loss of tickets or Codille; Spleen, Vapours, or Smallpox, above them all,

And mistress of herself, tho' china fall.

And yet believe me, good as well as ill, Woman's at best a contradiction still. 270 Heav'n when it strives to polish all it can Its last best work, but forms a softer

Man;

EPISTLE III

TO ALLEN, LORD BATHURST

OF THE USE OF RICHES

ARGUMENT

That it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, Avarice or Profusion. The point discussed, whether the invention of money has been more commodious or pernicious to mankind. That Riches, either to the Avaricious or the Prodigal, cannot afford happiness, scarcely necessaries. That Avarice is an absolute frenzy, without an end or purpose. Conjectures about the motives of avaricious men. 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. How a Miser acts upon principles which appear to him reasonable. How a Prodigal does the same. The due medium and true use of riches. The Man of Ross. The fate of the Profuse and the Covetous, in two examples; both miserable in life and in death. The story of Sir Balaam.

door;

spend)

Give Harpax' self the blessing of a friend; Or find some doctor that would save the life

Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's wife.

But thousands die without or this or that,
Die, and endow a College or a Cat.
To some indeed Heav'n grants the happier
fate

T'enrich a bastard; or a son they hate. Perhaps you think the poor might have their part?

Bond damus the poor, and bates them from his heart:

100

The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule That ev'ry man in want is knave or fool. 'God cannot love (says Blunt, with tearless eyes)

The wretch he starves and piously denies:

But the good bishop, with a meeker air, Admits, and leaves them, Providence's

Phryne foresees a general excise. Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum?

Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum. Wise Peter sees the world's respect for gold,

tail?

90

sold.